Offered by Galerie Magdeleine
REQUEST INFORMATION
Paintings and drawings from the 17th to the 19th century
Jan VAN DOORNIK (? – after 1734)
Fruits and Roses on a Ledge
Circa 1710. Oil on panel. H: 38; W: 30 cm.
Provenance: Charles Gasc Collection.
Jan van Doornik remains a largely unknown painter, whose origins, training, and artistic career have yet to be fully established. Active during the first decades of the 18th century, he is known today through only a very small number of paintings. Among these are two other fruit still lifes: one signed and dated 1712, sold at Christie's in Amsterdam on November 7, 2001; the other sold in Rotterdam in October 2026.
In addition to their similar dimensions and comparable arrangement of fruit on a ledge, our painting and the one sold at Christie's reveal the same approach to the rendering of textures and light. The grapes, depicted with a slightly opalescent transparency, display the same delicate reflections, while the blackberries are represented with a similar attention to detail. We also find the same characteristic manner of making the fruit emerge from a tangle of stems and foliage, whose outlines gradually disappear into the darkness of the background.
As for the still life sold in Rotterdam in October 2026, it offers equally significant points of comparison. The treatment of the bunches of grapes, with each individual grape distinguished by subtle variations of light, is particularly close to that of our panel. The leaves and stems, meticulously described in the illuminated areas before being almost absorbed by the shadows, reflect the same pictorial approach. Even more remarkable is the presence of an orange with a granular peel, whose distinctive texture, rendered through a multitude of small light-colored brushstrokes, is also found in our composition. This motif, together with the similarities observed in the rendering of the grapes and foliage, constitutes a particularly convincing element of comparison.
These correspondences, which go beyond the simple reuse of traditional motifs from Flemish and Dutch still-life painting, allow us to better define the stylistic characteristics of Jan van Doornik. They also help situate our painting within a still very limited body of work, to which it constitutes a particularly interesting addition.
