Van der Goes

Little is known about this miniature painter of the late seventeenth century, except that he belonged to a family of artists, at least on his mother’s side. He was the son of Jan-Paulo van der Goes (?–1696), whose activity is unknown, and of Maria Magdalena de Coninck (?–1673), herself the daughter of Andries de Coninck. The latter, an Antwerp artist and painter of pronkstilllevens—sumptuous still lifes in the style of Jan Davidszoon de Heem—gave up painting in favor of working as an art dealer. His wife’s brother, Andries Benedetti, was also a still-life painter. His son Gregorius de Coninck likewise pursued a career as a painter. Jan Augustin, his grandson, appears in the accounts and registers of the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke from 1694 to 1698 as a master, giving illumination lessons to a few students.

Jan Augustin van der Goes is known today only through insect miniatures, such as those preserved at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the Fondation Custodia in Paris. The Rijksmuseum holds eight insect miniatures: a beetle (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330E), a blue stag beetle (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330H), a moth (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330B), a grasshopper (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330A), a shrimp (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330D), a spider (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330F), a crab (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330G), and a caterpillar with several insects—woodlouse, ladybird, etc. (Inv. RP-T-1884-A-330C)—all acquired in 1884. The Fondation Custodia preserves four: two butterflies, perhaps Catocala Nymphagoga (Inv. 2020 T.54) and Deilephila porcellus (Inv. 2020 T.55); a pagurus, commonly called a hermit crab (Inv. 2020 T.56); and a composition with three insects—a rose chafer beetle, a ladybird, and what looks like a caterpillar but could in fact be an anthrenus (Inv. 2020 T.53). The artist may have wished to assemble three insects of the coleoptera order within the same composition.

Here, Jan Augustin van der Goes uses a black background, but he has placed the piece of bread and the hazelnuts—rendered with extraordinary delicacy—on a blue-grey surface. As in the shrimp, crab, and moth miniatures at the Rijksmuseum, he sometimes uses very fine pen strokes in brown ink to render the darkest parts of the shadows. The execution is virtuosic, and although van der Goes is known today only for his depictions of insects and crustaceans, the study of late eighteenth-century auction sales shows that he was nonetheless known and appreciated for the finesse of his still-life miniatures—for example, among many others, the “two very pretty miniatures, [of which] the first represents a covered table on which one sees a ham, sheep’s feet, a herring, butter, etc., [and] the other offers peaches, lemons, oranges, grapes, plums, crayfish, and shrimp, all placed on a table covered with a cloth,” or “a very beautiful miniature representing three slices of rye bread, two pieces of cod, and a piece of herring.” A unique testimony to this aspect of his miniature painting activity, this Still Life with Hazelnuts and Bread therefore constitutes a crucial addition to the corpus of this highly talented artist.