MARREL, Jacob

This still-life depicts a glass vase with flowers that has just toppled over on a stone ledge. The blooms - including two variegated tulips, narcissus, columbine, lily-of-the-valley, a carnation and a rose - are strewn on the ledge with the carnation and one of the tulips seeming to burst out of the picture plane. Droplets of water spill over the side at centre while a lizard rises up on its hind legs hoping to make a meal of a small moth that has alighted on the overturned vase. All this gives a vivid sense of immediacy, as if the viewer has just witnessed the mishap.

The painting is signed and dated lower right: J. Marrell. f/1669.

This panel depicts a still-life of flowers in a glass vase within a niche, with cherries, shells and a lizard.

This painting depicts a still-life of flowers in a niche with cherries, insects and a caterpillar. The bouquet is contained in a Dutch roemer and comprises some fifteen varieties of flower, from the humble forget-me-not draped on the ledge to the resplendent flame tulip crowning the composition. The blooms are arranged in elegant disarray within a stone niche, in a manner reminiscent of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder and Roelant Savery, by whom the artist was undoubtedly influenced.

The scale of this work and the choice of copper support are rare in Marrel’s oeuvre.

This panel depicts a still-life of flowers in a glass vase within a niche, with cherries, shells and a lizard.