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157 - ABRAHAM LEROY (Active in Paris and Nancy c.
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Estimate €60,000 - €80,000
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Description
ABRAHAM LEROY (Active in Paris and Nancy c. 1640–1660) Still Life on an Entablature Oil on canvas Dimensions: 51 x 80 cm The painting depicts a porcelain bowl containing cheese, a glass of red wine, a pewter jug, a still-smouldering candle, a pipe, a knife, two smoked herrings, bread and a mouse on a cornice, with the monogram ‘R’ in the bottom right-hand corner of the bread. Provenance: Presumably the Hermann Wedewer (1811–1871) Collection, Wiesbaden; his estate sale, J. M. Heberle, Lempertz, Cologne, 1 May 1899, lot 197 (attributed to Jan Albertsz Rootius); Private collection, Germany; sale, Lempertz, Cologne, 6 December 1997, lot 1140 (attributed to a 17th-century German artist); Private collection, Paris; the art dealer Jan de Maere, Brussels; acquired from the latter by the current owner prior to the Dorotheum auction in Vienna, which carried out research in consultation with Prof. Fred Meijer, who confirmed the attribution after examining this painting in person. Now in a private collection, Genoa. This composition is one of only two known autograph works by the artist, both of comparable size and with an almost identical composition. The first, formerly in the Jacques Leegenhoek collection in Paris, was sold at Koller in Zurich on 30 March 2012 (lot 3030, then catalogued under the name Abraham Le Roy). It was an inscription on the reverse of this Leegenhoek version that enabled the artist to be identified – the monogram ‘R’, visible on the small round loaf in both paintings, serves as his discreet signature. Michel Faré regarded Abraham Le Roy as one of the finest exponents of archaic 17th-century French still life, whilst emphasising that the artist had long remained little known, owing to a lack of biographical information and the scarcity of his surviving works (Faré, *Le grand siècle de la nature morte en France*, Fribourg, 1974, p. 142 ff.). Le Roy worked in Nancy and, in all likelihood, also in Paris, where an Abraham Le Royer (or Le Roy), son of Jean, is documented as a painter of miniature flowers in watercolour on parchment. Stylistically, the work follows in the tradition of earlier Dutch still lifes, such as those by Georg Flegel, Floris van Schooten, Osias Beert and Clara Peeters. The little mouse featured in the composition is particularly reminiscent of certain animal motifs found in Flegel’s work: associated with the smouldering candle, it draws on the classical symbolic repertoire of the Vanitas, evoking the fragility and transience of life.
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About the sale Day 1: Major Classical Art Auction – Old Master Paintings, Sculptures, Furniture, Archaeological Artefacts, Asian Art, Curiosities, Glassware, Silverware
Auction location
Auction time 11/11/2026 at 2:30 PM
Pictures credits: Contact the Auction House
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