Vase Of Flowers Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen The Younger

Painting oil on canvas measuring 117 x 89 cm without frame and 130 x 100 cm with frame depicting a vase of flowers by painter Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen the Younger (Antwerp 1664 - 1730).

Famous Flemish flower painter Gaspar Peeter Verbruggen the Elder had other children, but only his namesake descendant, Gaspar Peeter the Younger, earned a place in European art history. Raised in his father's workshop, ours devotes himself to the same pictorial genre but, unlike his parent, a hardworking and irreproachable character, he leads a senseless and wasteful life which leads him to ruin, to such an extent that in 1703 all his assets are put up for auction and in 1705, pursued by creditors, he had to flee to Holland in the company of his associate at the time.

Refuged in Amsterdam, he was soon banished from this city too and took refuge in Aja where he remained at least until 1723 collaborating with Matteus Terwesten who, like his brother Esaias, had lived in Rome at the end of the previous century. Perhaps because of this community of work, which could have influenced his style, many commentators believed to see an Italianate affinity in the works of Verbruggen and postulated a trip to the peninsula which, however, is not attested by any historical document. The presence of signatures such as "Gasparo Pedro Verbruggen" seems more a tribute to the legacy of Spanish domination than to Italian culture.

Most of his known works are centered on the representation of magniloquent vases filled with flowers alternately surrounded by other flowers arranged in a garland or simply placed at the base; vases are sometimes placed on square stone shelves or on column bases, inserted in classical architectural contexts, in niches or, more rarely, on dark backgrounds as in the case we are examining.

Despite a very characteristic iconographic continuity, in Verbruggen's production it is possible to identify a youthful phase, still inspired by the 17th century, tending to have a neutral background or with few visible elements, centered on strong contrasts chiaroscuro and a more distinctly 18th century phase, strongly lit, with vases inserted in architectural complexes made up of fluted or round columns, plinths and architraves or even blue skies crisscrossed by white clouds.

Even if our painting belongs to the production of the end of the 17th century, certain characteristics that the paintings of the following period also have in common, such as the size of the central vase, the making of the roses, their arrangement in pairs and the fleshy solid of the tulip petals. His abundant production reveals an artist with more pagination than his father especially in mature works when he breaks with traditional stylistic traits and highlights his compositions by enlarging petals and corollas beyond the limits of nature, full of choices and combinations of colors, inserts fruits and animals; these additional variations denote an adaptation to the decorative taste of the new century.

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Mr. Riccardo Moneghini
Art Historian