NARRATOR:
In the 17th century, Northern painters delighted in depicting material goods as citizens of all classes clamored for visual records of their increasingly prosperity. This still life by the German painter Sebastian Stoskopff is a masterpiece of painterly illusion. It depicts an array of empty glasses, buckets and cups, rendered with breathtaking attention to detail.
On the left, Stoskopff uses the muted reflections on a large brass pail and a gleaming copper basin to show his skill in depicting the textures of metal. On the right, an ordered stack of silver drinking cups edged in gold… a tall champagne flute… and a wicker basket piled high with goblets further proclaim his virtuosity. Through layers of fragile transparent glass, we see another goblet of hammered metal. Like much Dutch art, still lifes often contained moralizing messages. Here, amidst the material splendor, you’ll find pieces of a broken glass, alluding, perhaps, to the fragility of life. Beside it, an overturned goblet connects the painting to the world beyond the frame, by reflecting the panes of a window.
Bright light streaming in from the left bounces off the cool, polished surfaces. The objects appear so close to us that we’re almost attempted to touch them. Stoskopff was a master of trompe l’oeil, which means “fool the eye.” His exceptional skill was proved by this story: An image he painted of a paper print tacked to a board was so convincing that the Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III tried to pick it up. Luckily, His Majesty was mightily amused by the deceit. He demanded—as a punishment—that the artist give him the picture for his famous art gallery in Prague.
Still Life with Empty Glasses
c.1640
Sebastian Stoskopff (German, 1597-1657)
On View
Sebastian Stoskopff employed a limited palette of subdued tones of brown and gray to depict this corner of a kitchen where glasses are washed and stored after a meal. The artist’s technique is economic and precise: thin glazes of white paint suggest the transparency of glass and an underdrawing indicates the rims of the glasses in the basket. The composition, however—stacked gold-rimmed silver cups, light-reflecting brass and copper tubs, a wooden implement balancing precariously at the table’s edge and delicate, transparent glassware—is a tour de force of illusionism. Though certain motifs in this still life undoubtedly carry symbolic meaning (the broken glass may refer to the fragility of life, for instance), overall it demonstrates the artist’s delight in the beauty of materials that convey varied textures and translucency.
Though the artist’s early training took place in Germany, he was living in Paris by 1621 where he associated with the painters who lived in the Saint-Germain-de-Pres area where many Protestants and a large concentration of Dutch and Flemish painters also resided.
Details
- Artist Name: Sebastian Stoskopff (German, 1597-1657)
- Title: Still Life with Empty Glasses
- Date: c.1640
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Dimensions: 34 x 43-1/4 in. (86.4 x 109.9 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1972.18.2.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Private Collection, Vienna.
Sale, Dorotheum, Vienna.
[Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 1969, sold to];
[Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York; stock no. 6416-2693; offered 15 March 1972 and subsequently sold 31 May 1972 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
Sale, Dorotheum, Vienna.
[Galerie Sanct Lucas, Vienna, 1969, sold to];
[Paul Rosenberg & Co., New York; stock no. 6416-2693; offered 15 March 1972 and subsequently sold 31 May 1972 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1973-07-09 to 1974-08-26
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum,1989, p. 74
- Rosenberg, Pierre, France in the Golden Age. Seventeenth Century French Paintings in American collections [La Peinture française au XVII siècle dans les collections americaines,no. 103, 332-323, 373 pp. 202-203
- Müller, Wolfgang and Silvia Berger, Sebastien Stoskopff: Sein Leben, Sein Werk und Seine Zeit, pp. 27, 82
- Haug, H., Trois siècles d'art alsacien, pp. 23-72
- Wise, Susan, et al., France in the Golden Age, Seventeenth Century French Paintings in American Collections, p. 3
- Cohen, Ronald, Trafalgar Galleries, XII,no. 18, no. 11 p. 36
- Haug, H., Revue des Arts,no. 3
- Lorenzelli, Pietro; and Alberto Veca, Simposio ceremonie e apparati, p. 218
- Hahn-Woernle, Brigit, Sebastian Stoskopff: mit einem kritischen Werkverzeichnis der Gemälde,no. 44 pp. 204-206
- Sterling, C., Still Life Painting,
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best,2010, cat. 802 p. 340
- Norton Simon Museum, Selected Paintings at the Norton Simon Museum,1980, p. 66
- Le petit journal des grandes Expositions,no. 116 p. 3
- Graham, F. L., Three Centuries of French Art,no. 1 pp. 16-17
- Wright, Christopher, The French Painters of the 17th Century, p. 262
- Faré, Michel, Le grand siècle de la nature morte en France, p. 129
- Gazette des Beaux Arts, p. 3
- Gruber, Alian, Portratstudien: Festschrift für Michael Stettler,fig. 1 pp. 212-215
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