Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  Acquired by the present owner from the Brian Koetser Gallery, London, 1964 (as François Garnier)
  
  
  In the present lot, Louise Moillon has used the same grouping of cherries in the centre and left hand part of the tazza as she did in a signed and dated composition of 1630 (A plate of cherries, a cup of strawberries and a basket of gooseberries, on panel, 32.5 x 49 cm., Grazebrook Collection, London, illustrated in Michel Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la Nature Morte en France, Paris 1974, p.54).
  
  Louise Moillon, the daughter of the protestant artist Nicolas Moillon (1555-1619), grew up in the St. Germain des Près district of Paris, which from the beginning of the seventeenth century was a centre for painters from the southern Netherlands seeking refuge from religious persecution. Painting from an early age, she soon came under the influence of her step-father, the still life painter, François Garnier (circa 1600-1658), whom her mother had married in 1620. She enjoyed a notable reputation, and she, Linard and Boucle, were described by Georges de Scudery in a hyperbolic analogy as the later day Michelangelo, Raphael and Titian, respectively. Her production appears to have been at its height in the 1630s, steadily decreasing after her marriage in 1640 to Etienne Giradot, a dealer in wood, and the subsequent birth of her children.
  
  Moillon's austere yet meticulous and realistic still lifes reflect the influences of the Netherlandish artists, Jacob van Hulsdonck, Floris van Schouten, and Osias Beert. Her work was often erroneously confused with Dutch, Flemish and German painters, and it is interesting to note that a painting at Grenoble given to Moillon, has now been given to Osias Beert, and that as a consequence Moillon's oeuvre has been redefined.

Saleroom notices

• Please note the cataloguing for this lot should read 'Studio of Louise Moillon'.