(Antwerp 1636/46 – post 1701 Brussels?)
A parrot, melons, peaches, pomegranates, grapes and cherries in an Italianate park,
oil on canvas, 147 x 194 cm, framed

Provenance:
Bornos collection, Spain, (according to an old label on the reverse);
sale, Christie’s, London, 6 July 2010, lot 10;
where acquired by the present owner

Exhibited:
Brescia, Palazzo Martinengo Cesaresco, Gli animali nell’arte. Dal Rinascimento a Ceruti, 19 January – 9 June 2019, no. 44 (as David de Coninck)

Literature:
A. Crispo, in: Gli animali nell’arte. Dal Rinascimento a Ceruti, ed. by D. Dotti, exhibition catalogue, Cinisello Balsamo 2019, p. 150, no. 44 (as David de Coninck)

The present painting is registered in the RKD database under image no. 0000279699 (as David de Coninck).

The present composition is typical of the high baroque manner of still-life painting of which David de Coninck was among the leading exponents.

At the centre of the composition a red parrot perches on a stone pedestal that also supports the bust of a deity, probably Venus, surrounded by roses which were sacred to the goddess. Represented below is an abundance of flowers and fruit including melons, peaches, grapes, pomegranates, figs, hazelnuts and cherries. A richly ornamented salver emerges from behind the fruit on the right. The background is dominated by an Italianate garden, embellished with trees and enclosed by a balustrade ornamented by large vases.

As was frequent artistic practice among still-life specialists, de Coninck repurposed various elements of his repertoire for different works. The parrot depicted in the present painting for example reoccurs in a canvas in the Kunstmuseum, Basel, and in another conserved to the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Nantes. The detail of a salver reoccurs also in other of his works.

David de Coninck was active in Rome for almost thirty years, from the early 1670s, and the present painting belongs to this period. The pictorial vigour and exuberance of this work reveals echoes of the influence of the painter’s compatriot and aritistic antecedent, Rubens, combined with a mature understanding of his Italian, and specifically Roman, artistic milieu. Indeed, in Rome the painter was in contact with other still-life specialists, most notably Giacomo Galli, Lo Spadino and Michelangelo del Campidoglio, with whom he exchanged compositional models and inventions. The continual competition and exchange between the artists of Rome’s specialist studios contributed to the diffusion of a luxuriant repertoire that is distinctive to Roman baroque still-life painting.

David de Coninck trained in the Antwerp workshop of Pieter Boeland was later made a master of the Guild of Saint Luke there in 1664. He may also have frequented the studio of Jan Fyt to specialise in animal painting. From 1664 he was in Paris and from 1672 he is documented in Rome where he remained until 1694, working for the city’s most prestigious families as well as for European sovereigns and the nobility.