Abraham Mignon
After commencing his artistic training in his native Germany, he moved to the Dutch Republic where he was active in Utrecht during the last part of his short life.
It was also Marrell who asked Mignon to train his live-in stepdaughter Maria Sibylla Merian (1647–1717) in the art of still-life painting.
[5] Jan Davidszoon de Heem was an important innovator of still life painting who had worked for many years in Antwerp before returning to Utrecht in 1667.
[2] His best-known works are his elaborate compositions of flowers and fruits arranged in niches or on stone ledges, or displayed in grottos or amidst ruins.
On stylistic grounds it is assumed that his more elaborate still lifes of flowers, characterised by clear colours, sharp focus and the use of a dark background, are Mignon's distillation of de Heem's style.
[3] As Mignon died at a relatively young age, it is reasonable to assume that the circa 400 still-life paintings attributed to him were executed with the assistance of his workshop or by followers of his style.
His large output demonstrates the popularity of his works, which were collected widely in the 17th and 18h centuries, including by king Louis XIV of France and the Elector of Saxony.
His work is distinguished from de Heem by his rendering of nature in a cooler, more distant and sterile manner, through the precision in detail and drawing.
Mignon preferred a red, yellow and blue color palette and highly realistic manner of depicting nature.
[11] His favourite scheme was to introduce red or white roses in the centre of the canvas and to set the whole group of flowers against a dark background.
Such symbolism is clearly present in the Still life with peonies, roses, parrot tulips, morning glory, an iris and poppies in a glass vase set within a stone niche and caterpillars, a snail, a bee and a cockchafer on the ledge below (Sotheby's London sale of 4 July 2007 lot 41) in which various religious themes are expressed symbolically.
God's creation is symbolised through the four elements which at the time were believed to be the building blocks for everything existing in the visible world: earth is symbolised by its products (flowers, insects, stone), air by the flying insects, fire by the glass vase (which is made by fire) and water is present through the water inside the vase.
This motif is inspired by the Christian belief that the world is only a temporary place of fleeting pleasures and sorrows from which mankind can only escape through the sacrifice and resurrection of Jesus.
For example, in the Still life with peonies, roses, parrot tulips, morning glory, an iris and poppies in a glass vase set within a stone niche and caterpillars, a snail, a bee and a cockchafer on the ledge below, the poppy in the centre is fresh, the one at the top is mature while the one hanging over the ledge is already wilting.
A stone in the foreground refers to the inevitable decay of buildings erected by humans, a theme that is reprised in the crumbling arch in the background on the right.
