Maine Antique Digest, April 2017

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Maine Antique Digest, April 2017 3-D
- FEATURE --
3-D
Letter from London
by Ian McKay, >
This month’s selection contains something a little out of the ordinary in the
form of a heavily illustrated piece on a sale of vesta cases that took place
far from the London rooms—but sales in the capital are certainly not forgotten.
A spectacular ivory table centrepiece known as the “Rothschild Nef,” a trio
of fine English watches, a blooming reminder of the “Tulip Fever” years of
17th-century Holland and a superfast marble Iris are also to be found. Quoits
that served a particularly brutal and bloody purpose are also featured, together
with some “broken” cabriole front legs, while a couple of Breughels also come
into the mix, along with a sprinkling of snowy ski posters.
Also Blooming: A Gravity-Defying, Superfast Iris
Ivory Nef Pulls Away Once More from a Sotheby’s Shore
Summer Beauty Is a Reminder of Those Long-ago
Days of “Tulip Fever”
Balthasar van der Ast’s Zomerschoon
Tulip was sold for $1.02 million by
Christie’s.
Some time has yet to pass before
the tulips start to appear in my
garden, but one special speci-
men deserves a mention before it
becomes a dry, pressed specimen in
my older catalogue files.
Sold by Christie’s for $1,022,575
on December 8 last year, Balthasar
van der Ast’s Zomerschoon Tulip,
an oil on panel measuring roughly
10½" x 8", was until fairly recently
thought to date from 1636—but an
earlier date of circa 1625, a time
when the artist was working in
Utrecht rather than Middleburg, is
now thought more likely.
It was in the 1620s and ’30s that
what we now call tulip mania was
rampant in the Netherlands and
absurdly high prices were paid for
new and/or rarely coloured speci-
mens. Fortunes could be made and
lost overnight in an extraordinary
era that was the subject of Debo-
rah Moggach’s 1999 novel, Tulip
Fever.
So-called “broken tulips,” those
infected with a virus that resulted
in the sort of variegated colours
seen in this single bloom, were
the most popular new varieties
and the Zomerschoon, or Summer
Beauty, usually showing red or pink
streaks on a white or cream petal,
was a highly sought-after variety
that commanded exorbitantly high
prices.
It also remains one of the few
varieties of tulip cultivated in Hol-
land in the 17th century that still
exist today.
To what extent the artist was
influenced by “Tulip Fever” in
his choice of subject cannot now
be known, but something that is
of special significance about this
well-documented picture is its min-
imalist approach.
While the portrayal of single
blooms or plants was common in
watercolours and botanical book
illustration at the time, it was
“highly original for a work in oil”
and this picture was seen as mark-
ing a novel departure in van der
Ast’s work.
Each element of this Summer
Beauty, said the cataloguer, “…is
highlighted by the dark background…
[and] Van der Ast’s expertly applied
glazes of oil paint allow him to ren-
der the subtle modulations of shadow
on the flower, the shine of the round
glass vase and the small, bright high-
lights which distinguish three small
drops of water against the dark leaf
and background.”
This tulip, it is suggested, is not
merely a flower, but a highly precious
object and one with a veiled, underly-
ing message for the viewer.
“The perfect tulip stands unblem-
ished but will wilt and eventually die
now that it has been cut from its roots.”
The water droplets, one of which is
about to fall from the tulip’s leaf onto
the ledge below, symbolize the tran-
sience of life, and the two insects, it is
suggested, can be regarded as a sym-
bolic representation of man’s eventual
end.
The butterfly (an Adonis blue in this
instance, the lepidopterously minded
will know) was a common symbol of
resurrection and redemption, while the
fly, it seems, was frequently symbolic
of the Devil.
And if all that is too feverish a view,
just think of it as a very nice, but rather
expensive flower picture.
Described by Sotheby’s as “the most
important Italian Romantic sculp-
ture to come to auction in recent years,”
this life-size white marble sculpture of
Iris, the “Messenger of the Olympian
Gods,” certainly lived up to the billing
when in their December 14, 2016, sale
of 19th- and 20th-century sculpture she
sold for a treble estimate $542,895.
Signed and dated Milan 1873,
Metello Motelli’s Iris was said by the
auctioneers to epitomise the ambitious
imagination and technical virtuosity of
Lombard marble carvers in the second
half of the 19th century, and in its exu-
berance and technical accomplishment
should be considered the sculptor’s
masterpiece.
Iris was also seen as a personifica-
tion of the rainbow and was thought to
travel across land and sea at the speed of
wind—qualities depicted so that “…in a
gravity-defying tour-de-force, the god-
dess—personified as a graceful young
girl—is seemingly lifted by a torrent of
foliage and cloth, which, leaning for-
ward, she suspends above her head as a
billowing veil.”
The “Rothschild Nef,” a 17th-century piece
that that has become closely associated with
Sotheby’s over the last 40 years, sold for
$438,830.
Known as the “Rothschild Nef” after
one of its 20th-century owners, Baron
Guy Édouard Alphonse Paul de Rothschild
(1908-2007), the 17th-century ivory model
seen here was first sold by Sotheby’s in
1975, in one of their Monaco sales.
It reappeared in their London rooms in
1996, when it emerged that it had been
acquired by the British Rail Pension Fund
(whose advisors were Sotheby’s) during the
years 1974 to 1980 in which that experimen-
tal art investment project operated.
At the 1996 sale it was bought by Alfred
Taubman, who was of course the owner
of Sotheby’s from 1983 to 2005. Then on
December 6 last year it voyaged once more
back to the New Bond Street salerooms and
this time sold for $438,830.
Taking their name from a type of medi-
eval sailing vessel, nefs are probably more
familiar as silver table ornaments, often with
wheels—but this one is rather different in
form.
A 15" tall model, it is attributed on the
grounds of its “virtuoso technique…ambi-
tious scale and complexity” to one of the
most talented ivory carvers of the age, Georg
Pfründt (c. 1603-1663). A South German
craftsman, Pfründt was also known as a mod-
eller in wax, a medallist, and an engraver.
Employing what was at the time an expen-
sive and exotic material and the services of a
master craftsman, this nef must have been a
major commission.
The vessel’s sides are carved with men and
idealised young women, perhaps river gods
and nymphs, who are entwined by billowing,
wave-like drapes. The stem is formed of a
trio of figures representing the rape of one
of the Sabine women, a composition broadly
inspired by Giambologna’s monumental
marble of the same subject in the Loggia
dei Lanzi in Florence. The foot of the nef
is encircled by frolicking infant tritons and
putti playing with dolphins.
An ivory masterwork, it may have been
intended for display in a princely or noble
kunstkammer or wunderkammer. Such cabi-
nets or rooms had long been devoted to natu-
ral and artificial wonders, from fine bronzes
and paintings to uncarved gems and animal
specimens, but the 17th century saw a vogue
for adding superbly worked pieces in amber,
rhinoceros horn, and, in particular, objects
modelled from elephant or marine ivory.
Letter from London continues on page 6-D
“Remember that the
most valuable
antiques are
dear old friends.”
~H. Jackson Brown, Jr.
Nothing is really work unless
you would rather be doing
something else.
J.M. Barrie