Creative Commons License
Creative Commons License
Still Life of Birds and a Butterfly
(Baroque Europe )
This still life of dead birds on a rocky shelf is given an elegiac quality by the addition of a butterfly, suggesting (through the brevity of its own life), the brevity and mutability of existence and also by the exquisite softness of the still forms conveyed by brushwork. This work can be attributed to Carstian Luyckx, a flemsih still life painter, whose choice of subject matter ranged widely but included very similar works that are signed, as this piece is not.
Provenance
Provenance (from the French provenir, 'to come from/forth') is the chronology of the ownership, custody, or location of a historical object. Learn more about provenance at the Walters.
Don Marcello Massarenti Collection, Rome [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1902, by purchase; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
Geographies
France (Place of Origin)
Measurements
H: 14 3/8 x W: 19 1/2 in. (36.5 x 49.5 cm)
Credit Line
Acquired by Henry Walters with the Massarenti Collection, 1902
Location in Museum
Not on view
Accession Number
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
In libraries, galleries, museums, and archives, an accession number is a unique identifier assigned to each object in the collection.
37.1754