Jan van Os (1744-1808), A still life with flowers, fruits, insects, a mouse and a bird`s nest, oil on panel, 70x56 cm, Exhibited:-Amsterdam, Kunsthandel P. de Boer (22 April-30 May 1983)/Braunschweig, Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum (15 June-31 July 1983), `A fruitful past, A survey of the fruit still lifes of the northern and southern Netherlands from Brueghel till Van Gogh`, no. 69. Lots 56-83: A Distinguished Collection, signed and dated `J. van Os. fecit 1774` (lower left), Painter Jan van Os was already a famous artist when he was visited by admirers in his house in The Hague at the end of the eighteenth century. When they asked who had been his tutor, the answer was surprisingly short: “Nature”. Now this was not quite true of course, as Van Os was taught to draw and paint by the animal, still life and decorative painter Aert Schouman (1710-1792) in The Hague. In 1773 Van Os became a member of the Confrérie Pictura in the same city, which also gave him status enough to send pictures to the Society of Artists in London. These quickly earned him quite a reputation with England’s and France’s aristocracy and even resulted in a commission by the Russian Tsarina, who – rumour had it – paid him with 1,000 Dutch florins or even more! Initially Jan van Os painted seascapes and river views based on seventeenth century paintings, but he soon became most famous as a painter of flower and fruit still lifes. In 1775 Van Os married Susanna de la Croix, a very respectable artist herself, and the daughter of the portraitist Pieter Frederik de la Croix. With two artistic parents - father Van Os was also a poet - it is no wonder that the three Van Os children, Pieter, Maria Margaretha and Georgius, all became reputable artists. Looking at this delightful lot we know the Tsarina paid not a cent too much for such great talent. We also begin to understand why Van Os saw nature to be his real tutor. The profusion of luscious fruit and flowers is painted with such delicacy and accuracy that you have to prevent yourself from trying to pick some of the delicious grapes, or from smelling the exquisite pink roses. Van Os’ lavish choice of fruit and flowers include both the exotic, such as the cockscomb and pineapple, and the more common, such as the hollyhock and plums.Some elements, like the cockscomb, pineapple and bird’s nest, are strong reminders of Van Os’ great example, fruit and flower painter Jan van Huysum (1682-1749), as are the arrangements of the background and foreground. However, Van Os had a virtuosity of his own and some details are rendered with such great technical skill that in certain aspects he is even outdoing his famous predecessor. The pewter plate on the right reflects both the rose and a bunch of white grapes, with the pips showing through. The waxy coat of the plums and grapes is applied with such great skill that they look as if they were freshly picked just before they were painted. Other elements like the split melon and the cracked walnuts are depicted meticulously and, again, bring seventeenth century still lifes to mind, as does the little mouse in the left hand corner. Two bluebottle flies, one perching on a grape and one on a hollyhock, seem at first to disturb the equilibrium of the beautiful piece, but then they are also proof of the painter’s great technical virtuosity and simultaneously his ode to nature in which after all, all things are bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small. Sources:-Sam Segal, ‘Flowers and Nature : Netherlandish flower painting of four centuries’, The Hague 1990.-A. Hallema, ‘Uit de bescheiden van de familie Copes van Cattenburch: Te weinig bekende Haagsche beelden en typen uit de 18de eeuw’, In: Het Vaderland: Staat- en letterkundig nieuwsblad, 10 July 1937.