Garland of Flowers by Abraham Mignon Magdalena Kraemer-Noble This text is published under an international Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs Creative Commons licence (BY-NC-ND), version 4.0. It may therefore be circulated, copied and reproduced (with no alteration to the contents), but for educational and research purposes only and always citing its author and provenance. It may not be used commercially. View the terms and conditions of this licence at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-ncnd/4.0/legalcode Using and copying images are prohibited unless expressly authorised by the owners of the photographs and/or copyright of the works. © of the texts: Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa Fundazioa-Fundación Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao Photography credits © Bilboko Arte Ederren Museoa Fundazioa-Fundación Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao: figs. 1, 14 and 15 By courtesy of Richard Green, London: fig. 9 By courtesy of Magdalena Kraemer-Noble: figs. 4, 10 and 12 By courtesy of Johnny Van Haeften, London: fig. 8 © Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden / Elke Estel, Hans-Peter Klut: figs. 5 and 6 © Horta Auctioneers, Brussels: fig. 11 © MBA Lyon / Alain Basset: fig. 3 © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid: fig. 7 © Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague: figs. 2 and 13 © Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe: fig. 16 © Tim Koster, ICN, Rijswijk/Amsterdam: fig. 17 Text published in: B’08 : Buletina = Boletín = Bulletin. Bilbao : Bilboko Arte Eder Museoa = Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao = Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, no. 4, 2009, pp. 195-237. efore studying the opulent Garland of Flowers [fig. 1] in the Museum’s collection, it would be of prior in- terest to explore the challenging life of the Baroque painter Abraham Mignon who is unknown in Spain Bexcept this still-life in Bilbao. His works under Dutch and Flemish influence are exclusively devoted to still-lifes or still-life related themes that he invented himself. By looking at the mostly precise depiction of the microcosm of nature and perceiving the hidden meaning or symbolic sense behind the objects and scenes, the viewer gets a better understanding of the artist himself. Abraham Mignon was born in Frankfurt/Main, Germany on June 26, 1640 as the eldest son of the cheese grocer and merchant Peter Mignon, whose forefathers had settled there as coppersmiths from the Southern Netherlands a hundred years earlier. They belonged to the first influx of mostly French-speaking immigrants looking for more prosperous opportunities. Also as religious refugees they had found a place in order to practise their Calvinist faith. However, the local townsmen opposed the successful Dutch salesmen through decrees by the city council in 1594 and 1612 which forbade them practising their religion anymore. This fact together with the ongoing chaotic times of the Thirty Years War lead to a financial decline which forced Mignon’s par- ents to exclude their son from their household before they moved to Wetzlar, Germany. Around 1650, Abraham was brought under the care of the still-life painter, art dealer and collector of tulips Jacob Marrel. After succeeding into a considerable heritage, the latter had moved from the Northern countries to Frankfurt and married the widow of the renowned Swiss engraver Matthäus Merian the Elder. Together with Marrel’s stepdaughter, Maria Sybilla Merian, the most famous and courageous female painter of her time, Mignon shared the culture of the Merian home and pursued an apprenticeship as painter. 3 1. Abraham Mignon (1640-1679) Garland of Flowers, c. 1675 Oil on canvas, 102.7 x 84.5 cm Bilbao Fine Arts Museum Inv. no. 69/223 4 The next influential step happened when Marrel took Mignon on his commercial travels to Antwerp and Utrecht where, since the foundation of the St. Luke’s guild in 1649, a professional painter had the exclusive protection to trade his merchandise within the city. Mignon, becoming a member of the guild in 1669, also profited of Marrel’s connections with Jan D. de Heem whom Mignon met and underwent a close and fruitful relationship. In 1672, after the French invasion of the Dutch Republic, De Heem had decided to move back from Utrecht to Antwerp. Although not documented, Mignon might have taken over De Heem’s studio, but installed himself definitely in Utrecht. There he married Maria Willarts, a Walloon woman and grandchild of Adam Willarts from the dynasty of the famous seascape painters. The ceremony took place in the French reformed Janskerk in 1675. Besides being appreciated as a talented, diligent and reputed still-life painter, he continued his service as deacon in the Calvinist church. On March 26, 1679, Abraham Mignon died in Utrecht at the age of thirty-nine and left behind his wife and two daughters. An analysis of Mignon’s considerable oeuvre proves that besides copying Jan D. de Heem or assimilating the style of other still-life painters like Willem van Aelst, Otto Marseus van Schrieck or Jacob Gillig, he has to be considered as an independent and ambitious artist using strong colours, applying masterly light and shadow and creating an illusion of space. As towards the end of the Baroque era, Mignon finds himself at the peak of his faculties, he adds to the aesthetic dimensions of colouring and composition the sense of vanity and hidden symbolic meaning, nourished by his religious belief. Mignon’s works were copied during his lifetime and thereafter up to the nineteenth century. Spectators are banned still today by their visual virtuosity. His paintings are preserved in museums and private collections all over the world. In 1953, when Doña María Arechavaleta donated a spectacular still-life painting Garland of Flowers 1 from the José Palacio collection as provenance to the Bilbao Fine Arts Museum, we must assume that she was aware of enriching the museum’s collection. Indeed, since that time this well-preserved piece2 attracts lots of visitors and art historians to explore its full sense and beauty3. However, nothing is known about this magnificent example of Dutch seventeenth-century painting. As far as we are aware, no references exist on the provenance of the still-life in old archives4, nor is there a hint about how it made its way from the Northern Netherlands to Spain. Also the meaning of the female figure, depicted inside the medallion, is difficult to determine. Nevertheless some reflections may shed light on the Garland of Flowers by Abraham Mignon. Hanging on a cartouche made of grey stone, six different bunches of flowers are attached by two ends with a crown imperial (Fritillaria imperialis) at the top. They are fixed on branches of willow and ivy, intertwined by blue ribbons. The monumental composition is symmetrically decorated around a figurative scene in the centre. The garland ends in a silk-tied bow in the centre, overlapping the oval frame and thus rendering a certain elegance and illusion of space. While two bouquets, treated in a smaller scale, are placed to the left and right at the top, the remaining four are double in size and easily fill the canvas to its borders. Two parallel- shaped bushes of lilies, poppies and tulips fit well in their vertical appearance on both sides. They are 1 Unfortunately, at the time of editing the mono graph on Abraham Mignon (Kraemer-Noble 2007), I was not aware of the existence of the still-life painting in Bilbao. I’m grateful of Dr. Sam Segal of introducing me to the painting. 2 Ultraviolet screening shows the original’s high quality except one small spot at the height of the white lily to the left on dark ground. The iris, the head of the figure in the centre, her left hand, the head of the black servant, the basket with flowers and the lower part of the canvas show little touches. A lower line scratches the surface in about a height of 4.5 cm which could be caused by former framing. Eventual cleaning would bring out brighter colours. 3 Bibliography: Lasterra 1969, no. 223 (attributed to Daniel Seghers) and fig.; Madrid 1989, p. 72 and fig.; Padua/Rome 1991, pp. 52-53 and fig.; Castañer 1992-1993, p. 188 and fig.; Madrid/Bilbao/Barcelona 1992, p. 114 and fig.; Castañer 1995, pp. 244-247 and fig.; Ana Sánchez-Lassa in Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao... 1999, p. 114 and fig.; Ana Sánchez-Lassa in Maestros antiguos y modernos... 2001, p. 53 and fig.; Ana Sánchez-Lassa in Museo de Bellas Artes de Bilbao... 2006, p. 76, no. 53 and fig. 4 Thanks to Fred G. Meijer who checked the archives of RKD, The Hague. 5 connected with the lower part of the painting by two filled festoons of various kinds of blossoms which are balanced by gigantic blooms: a poppy and a peony below, against a light and a dark-blue iris opposing the darkish background. Mignon himself approved the composition with his signature to be found at an unusual spot just below the crown imperial. It appears as if he squeezed in his name between two stalks of herbs. The signature itself can be authenticated by comparison within his oeuvre and by the untouched layer of colour on the surface. At first sight, this construction and compilation of a cosmos of botanical species and insects seems to create visual confusion that is, however, eradicated by a sophisticated artistic trick, that of a colour pattern. Each floral unit is composed of the main colours red and white which like flashing lights render the impression of the composition to explode. The white colour in the middle is surrounded by tints of pink, blue or bicoloured and is continued in a red tonality and variants of orange and yellow.