Lot 59
Jakob Bogdani(Eperjes 1660-1724 London)Still life of flowers in a stone urn, with monkey holding grapes
3 December 2025, 14:00 GMT
London, New Bond Street£30,000 - £50,000
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Jakob Bogdani (Eperjes 1660-1724 London)
Still life of flowers in a stone urn, with monkey holding grapes
oil on canvas
127.9 x 103.3cm (50 3/8 x 40 11/16in).
oil on canvas
127.9 x 103.3cm (50 3/8 x 40 11/16in).
Footnotes
Provenance
The Collection of Lord Kenton (according to a label on the reverse)
Exhibited
London, Sotheby's, The Glory of the Garden: A Loan Exhibition in Association with The Royal Horticultural Society, 21-28 January 1987, cat. no. 30
Of Hungarian origin, Jacob Bogdani, or Bogdany, first lived and worked in Amsterdam but then had settled in London by 1688. He became particularly known for his paintings of birds, often mixing more exotic birds such as cockatoos or macaws with the more familiar European birds. A further part of his output was dedicated to flowers and in the present work, he has combined his interest in animals with a floral arrangement. Other such examples of this type can be found in the pair of large-scale flower still lifes at Kedleston Hall, Derbyshire (KED/P/258), where they have hung since before 1769. As in the Kedleston pictures, Bogdany has set the elaborate floral arrangement before a curtain and other architectural features but with a monkey to the right who is shown eating cherries, often seen as a symbol of the devil and of gluttony or lust; a reminder of the sinful temptations before all of us.