Description
Signed and dated 1853, oil on panel
Dimensions
77.5cm x 59cm (30.5in x 23.25in)
Footnote
Note: 'Still Life of Flowers on a Stone Ledge' is an exquisite example of the continuation of the Dutch still-life tradition into the nineteenth century, by a painter considered to be the foremost painter of such a subject in that century. Hendrik Reekers was, and remains, particularly recognised for these later, beautifully detailed compositions of flowers.
The son of an established artist who specialised in genre subjects, Hendrik Reekers' first teacher was his father, though he later studied with leading still-life painter Georgius Jacobus Johannes van Os. Reekers began exhibiting relatively early, in 1832, and continued throughout his career; he displayed a range of oils and watercolours but was always particularly focussed on still-life subjects, and especially flowers. As well as consistently exhibiting in Amsterdam and the Hague, Reekers also travelled to Paris and Versailles and had a picture exhibited at the British Institution in London in 1847, though it is unclear whether he travelled to London with this painting.
In 'Still Life of Flowers on a Stone Ledge' Reekers creates a masterful composition, a perfectly balanced sweep that fills the panel, from the tall tulips down, allowing the display of a dazzling variety of flowers and range of perspectives of the blooms, revealing both the beauty and bounty of nature and the impressive skill of the artist to render it so accurately. Different flowers are shown in developing stages, from small wisps of growth and the serrated edges of fresh green leaves to the lush petals of fully blossoming flowers, in this richly luxurious bouquet.