Otto Marseus van Schrieck (called Snuffelaer)
1619 – 1678
Two Common Wall Lizards (Podaris Muralis)
Medium:
Oil on Canvas
Category:
Dimensions:
17.8(h) x 24.2(w) cms
Framed Dimensions:
28.2(h) x 34.2(w) cms
Exhibitions:
Essay:
Otto Marseus van Schrieck specialised in painting still lifes of forest floors with reptiles, frogs, insects, plants and mushrooms. Van Schrieck is credited as the inventor of this sub-genre known as sottobosco or 'forest floor' pictures. The style appears to have been developed while the artist living in Rome and Florence in the 1640s and 1650s. Here he worked alongside Matthias Withoos, Willem van Aelst and Paolo Porpora, all of whom he influenced. His Bentvueghels name Snuffelaer (which translates roughly to 'ferreter' or 'snuffler') appears well chosen as he spent much of his time studying the undergrowth questing for inspiration and detail.
Van Schrieck was much travelled having worked in England and France and for a long time was employed by the Grand Duke of Tuscany. In 1664 he married Margarita Gysels (daughter of the engraver Cornelis Gysels) in Amsterdam.
As a painter of still lifes and flowers he is of the highest quality. His compositions with insects and reptiles are extremely accurately observed and these pictures obtain a particular air of suspense and drama.
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As Houbraken records, van Schrieck kept various reptiles in a shed behind his house to use as study aids for his pictures. It is tempting to think that this is a study of two of van Schrieck's pet lizards in their hutch and the artist worked directly from nature.
The lizards appear to be Common Wall Lizards. While these animals can vary in their colouration, they are common in both western and southern Europe, and so would have been recognised by both Italians and Northerners. Perhaps this broad appeal is in part why this breed appears so often in van Schriek's work, as well as the work of other sottobosco artists. Gero Seeling in 'Medusa's Menagerie: Otto Marseus van Schrieck and the Scholars' argues that van Schrieck's art can be understood as part of an Enlightenment drive towards taxonomy and empirical science - documenting the natural world. It is easy to imagine these studies hanging in a curiosity cabinet amongst taxidermy and engravings of the natural world.
Provenance:
Private Collection, USA
