Consider the lilies, how they grow: they toil not, neither do they spin; yet I say unto you, Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
-Luke 12: 27
We have entered the world of collecting original eighteenth century paintings up here on the hill.
I know it has a couple little chips and dings, but when you consider it's been knocking around this planet since sometime between 1706 and 1749, it's not in particularly bad shape.
The story of how this little still life found its way to Tara begins nearly three decades ago, in Kansas City. Peg was a newly-minted CRNA who enjoyed spending a portion of her rare time off at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. There she encountered a still life that so enchanted her that it brought tears to her eyes as she'd sit and meditate on it.
The image apparently doesn't do it justice, by P's telling, obscuring the exquisite detail and fine brush strokes. That it has remained prominently in Peg's memory all these years suggests a very special work of art.
Fast forward to twelve days ago, as I was driving on a sunny Sunday down Highway 98 somewhere between Panacea and East Point. P sent me a text that I illegally opened and read without plunging into the bay.
She'd found another painting by the same artist on eBay, with a couple seemingly minor blemishes but as beautiful as the painting now hanging in the Nelson. She told me the story of her relationship with the museum piece, and I suggested that if it meant that much to her she should follow her heart and bid on this latest find.
So she did. And yesterday it arrived here, wrapped in several layers of cardboard and bubble wrap, all the way from France. As you saw at the top of this blog, it didn't disappoint.
She also bought a print of the piece she loved in Kansas City, and that was a bit of a disappointment. The detail, the lively flying insects and subtle colors, seem washed out in that medium. Still, I think they'll end up hanging together here in the home office.
Both paintings are the work of Jan van Huysum (1682-1749), in his time one of the best-known still life artists in the world.
Born in Amsterdam, and the son of a successful painter of Arcadian murals in rich folks' houses, van Huysum married well and moved with his new wife Elisabeth into one of her family's properties on the Leidsegracht Canal, then marking the far southern edge of Amsterdam. The two of them had twelve children, only three of whom survived their parents. Elisabeth died two years after Jan, in 1751.
Although he married into money, Jan was that rarest of artists who managed to get quite wealthy in his vocation. Van Huysum's still life paintings hung in the homes of the likes of Prince William of Hesse, the duc d’Orleans, the kings of Poland and Prussia, the elector of Saxony, and Sir Robert Walpole, later Earl of Orford. Maybe our little painting spent time in high cotton.
Jan's technique involved studying flowers carefully throughout their life cycle of budding through decay and death, leading him on regular travels to Haarlem, then the flower capital of the world. He was apparently a little secretive and prickly about his process for creating a work of art, and generally barred others from watching him paint. He still managed to spawn several successors who modeled their work after his, although his career is seen as marking the climax of the era of these sorts of highly detailed still life paintings, as the baroque gave way to the rococo. (thank you R. Herold, my AP European History Teacher in 1981, for the fact that I know the difference).
Our time here has been punctuated by P's gradual filling of this lovely antebellum home with beautiful old things, with yesterday being the high water mark. We have a couple cool, contemporary acrylics hanging at Wyldswood and in my Panama City office, but nothing like van Huysum's flowers. Abiding with this masterpiece, contemplating the delicate brush strokes and the long departed hands that created them, I can see why his work brought tears to P's eyes all those years ago.
A foggy morning here in the Southern Tier, with temperatures gradually falling over the weekend and the promise of snow by Sunday. Tonight I may try to talk Peg into a chamber music concert over in Elmira, then tomorrow we're off to B-ville to pick out the last furniture we need to furnish this house (or at least that's what I and my banker tell ourselves), a dining room set to go with the impressive old buffet that arrived a month ago. Now a few hours of thinking labor to help pay for it all.
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