Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants

1696

Adriaen Coorte

Artist, Dutch, active c. 1683 - 1707

A bundle of pale green, thick asparagus stalks bound by twine and a bunch of glistening ruby-red currants sit on the edge of a stone table or ledge against a deeply shadowed background in this vertical still life painting. The asparagus is situated with the jagged, broken edges facing our left and the pointed tips angled away from us to our right. The base of the stalks are nearly cream-white, and the tips are faint green and muted purple. To our right, one the two stems of the red currant berries and leaves dangles off the front edge of the table. Light spills onto the scene from our upper left giving the currants a glassy sheen. The stone ledge or table is cracked in a couple of places. The artist signed this work as if he had inscribed his name and the date on the front surface of the table: “A. Coorte. 1696.”

Media Options

Skip thumbnail navigation
Back to thumbnail navigation
This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.

Adriaen Coorte often focused his compositions on discrete elements placed on a stone tabletop. Whether depicting a bowl of cherries, an arrangement of exotic shells, or a bunch of asparagus, as in this small masterpiece, he imbued his scenes with a haunting timelessness. Here, Coorte balanced the painting by offsetting the bundle of white asparagus with a sprig of red currants and enhanced the composition by using soft light, atmosphere, texture, and a delicate palette of purples, greens, whites, and reds.

Virtually nothing is known about Adriaen Coorte except that he created about one hundred paintings between 1683 and 1707. He apparently lived and worked in Middelburg, the capital of the province of Zeeland in the southern part of the Netherlands, where local collectors acquired many of the artist’s still lifes. He may have been a gentleman "amateur" painter rather than a professional artist, and until the late 1950s his name hardly appeared in discussions of Dutch art. Now, however, Coorte is rightly recognized as a gifted and original master, whose spare and carefully balanced compositions are highly prized.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 50-B

Order reproductions from the Gallery Shop

Artwork overview

More About this Artwork

Video:  Two-Minute Tour: Clouds, Ice, and Bounty

Join exhibition curator Betsy Wieseman on a two-minute tour of the 2021-2022 exhibition Clouds, Ice, and Bounty.

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants, 1696

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Baroness Irene von der Becke-Klüchtzner. "property of a gentleman"; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 8 July 1977, no. 84); (David Koetser Gallery, Zurich); private collection; (David Koetser Gallery, Zurich); purchased 7 October 2002 by NGA.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

2003

  • Small Wonders: Dutch Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2003, checklist no. 6, color repro.

2021

  • Clouds, Ice, and Bounty: The Lee and Juliet Folger Fund Collection of Seventeenth-Century Dutch and Flemish Paintings, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2021, no. 3, repro.

Bibliography

1977

  • Bol, Laurens J. Adriaen Coorte: A Unique Late Seventeenth Century Dutch Still-Life Painter. Assen, 1977: 68, no. a.

2002

  • Sutton, Peter C. Dutch and Flemish paintings : The Collection of Willem Baron van Dedem. London, 2002: 87, fig. 13a.

2003

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Small Wonders: Dutch still lifes by Adriaen Coorte. Exhibition brochure. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2003: no. 6.

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. "Adriaen Coorte, Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 29 (Spring 2003): 14, repro.

2006

  • Bénézit, Emmanuel. Dictionary of artists. 14 vols. Paris, 2006: 3:1357.

2008

  • Buvelot, Quentin. The still lifes of Adriaen Coorte (active c.1683-1707): with oeuvre catalogue. Exh. cat. Royal Picture Gallery Mauritshuis, The Hague. Zwolle, 2008: 32, 43, 57, 64, 96, 97, no. 24, repro.

2014

  • Wheelock, Arthur K, Jr. "The Evolution of the Dutch Painting Collection." National Gallery of Art Bulletin no. 50 (Spring 2014): 2-19, repro.

2021

  • Barkan, Leonard. The Hungry Eye: Eating, Drinking, and European Culture from Rome to the Renaissance. Princeton, 2021: 226-228, fig. 5.21.

Inscriptions

lower left on front of ledge in black paint: A. Coorte. 1696; on reverse: two circular red seals removed from previous stretcher and set into current stretcher, on each, “IRENE” under a crown, and large, embossed fabric monogram on a piece of fabric that may have been cut from a previous lining fabric, under a crown, ornately intertwined letters, possibly “IBK”

Wikidata ID

Q20177695

You may be interested in

Loading Results