Abraham Mignon
Garland of Fruit and Flowers
1659
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, 20 1/2 x 26 1/4 in. (52.1 x 66.7 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of William A. Dickey, Jr.
Object Number
1957.32
A festoon of meticulously rendered fruits and flowers suspended before a stone niche fills the center of this composition. Delicate blue bows decorate the spikes holding the arrangement and various insects, as well as a snail, appear throughout.
Although the still life has been represented since ancient Roman times, it was often incorporated into larger compositions as seen in Cornelis van Haarlem’s Venus and Adonis also on view in this wing. In the course of the seventeenth century, it emerged as an independent art form, and in the Netherlands, where there was a strong interest in botany, floral still life, in particular, became extremely popular. The opulent splendor of this work distinguishes Mignon as one of the masters of this genre.
The conservation treatment of the frame for the Abraham Mignon painting was generously funded by the Richard C. von Hess Foundation.
The Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1957; William A. Dickey, Jr. by purchase, May 3, 1957; Kunsthandel D.A. Hoogendijk & Co., Amsterdam.
Museum Prinsenhof, “IXe Oude Kunst-en Antiekbeurs der Vereniging van Handelaren in Oude Kunst Nederland,” September 6 to 22, 1957.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, “New Accessions,” Summer 1957.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, “Still Life-Fruit and Flowers,” March 7 to April 4, 1961, p. 22, no. 16.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, “New Accessions,” Summer 1957.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, “Still Life-Fruit and Flowers,” March 7 to April 4, 1961, p. 22, no. 16.
Edward S. King, “Fruits and Flowers,” Baltimore Museum of Art News 11, no. 1 (October 1957): pp. 1–4.
“Accessions of American and Canadian Museums: April–June, 1957,” The Art Quarterly 3 (Autumn 1957): pp. 318, 321.
“Object of the Week,” The Baltimore Sun (Baltimore, MD) July 6, 1958, repro.
Adriaan van der Willigen and Fred G. Meijer, A Dictionary of Dutch and Flemish Still-Life Painters Working in Oils, 1525–1725 (Leiden: Primavera Press, 2003), p. 143.
Magdalena Kraemer-Noble, Abraham Mignon 1640-1679: Catalogue Raisonné (Petersberg: Michael Imhof Verlag, 2007), pp. 50–51.
The Baltimore Museum of Art, The Baltimore Museum of Art: Celebrating a Museum (Baltimore: The Baltimore Museum of Art, 2014), pp. 42–43.