Christie’s Classic Week London will include A Vase of Flowers and Fruit with Flowers by Jan van Huysum in the Old Masters Evening Sale on 8 December 2026, with an estimate of £6,000,000-8,000,000 for the pair.
They are the only known large-scale fruit and flower pendants by Jan van Huysum in private hands. Painted in the early 1730s, the pendants have spent the last eighty years in a private English collection. Both are oil on panel: A Vase of Flowers measures 31½ x 23 in. (80 x 59.3 cm.), while Fruit with Flowers measures 31½ x 23¾ in. (79.9 x 60.3 cm.).
The paintings
A Vase of Flowers
A bird’s nest rests on a marble ledge beneath the bouquet in A Vase of Flowers, the first of Christie’s Jan van Huysum paintings. Behind it are a statue of Flora and columns, with the arrangement set outdoors. The panel is signed and dated 1731/32, with dates of 1731 and 1732.
The flowers rise above terracotta. Roses and tulips appear with a crown imperial; hyacinths and gentians join peonies, blossom and other flowers in the bouquet. A putto hangs from a garland of flowers on the vase relief.
Fruit with Flowers
The second of Christie’s Van Huysum pendants is signed and dated 1732 and 1733. Fruit occupies the marble ledge. Peaches and grapes spill across it with figs and plums, redcurrants and a pomegranate. The composition also includes a pineapple, with hollyhocks and a sculpted terracotta vase of poppies behind the fruit, all set outdoors. On the vase relief, three dancing nymphs may allude to the Three Graces.
Both paintings receive their light from an unseen source on the left.
How Van Huysum worked
Jan van Huysum (1682-1749) preferred to paint specimens from life, even if that meant waiting months for the right flower to bloom. The two pictures may have been started in summer, then completed in the spring or summer of the following year.
Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s Global Head of the Old Masters Department, said of Christie’s Jan van Huysum paintings: “In terms of quality, condition and visual impact these are amongst the finest 18 th century still lifes I have come across and they perfectly exemplify the refinement and ambition of Van Huysum’s mature style.”
Provenance
The first recorded appearance of Christie’s Van Huysum pendants is in a 1783 inventory of the Hesse-Kassel collection, during the reign of Landgrave Frederick II. His father, Landgrave Wilhelm VIII, may have acquired them.
The pair has traditionally been identified with pictures acquired from the Counts Zinzendorf und Pottendorf of Vienna in 1762 by Jean Étienne Liotard (1702-1789).
At Kassel, the paintings passed from Frederick II to his eldest son, Wilhelm IX. French forces seized them in 1806. They were given to Empress Josephine Bonaparte. She probably took them to Château de Malmaison. By 1835, when John Smith published his Catalogue of van Huysum’s work, the pair was in the collection of Alexander Baring, later 1st Baron Ashburton.
An entire collection changed hands. In 1907, Thomas Agnew & Co. and a consortium of dealers acquired the Baring collection en bloc; Alfred de Rothschild bought the two pictures.
The paintings passed through Halton House and Exbury House. Alfred de Rothschild bequeathed Halton House to his nephew Lionel Nathan de Rothschild (1882-1942), who moved the paintings to Exbury House. Lionel’s probate valuation of April 1942 records them sold to Partridge for £1,250 each.
Sir Edward Mountain, founder of Eagle Star Insurance, purchased the pair from Partridge in 1946.
Discussing the sale of Christie’s Van Huysum pendants, Andrew Fletcher, Christie’s Global Head of the Old Masters Department, said: “We are thrilled to be handling their sale, following the record prices achieved for the artist earlier this year at Christie’s.”
Where to see them before Christie’s Classic Week London sale
The paintings are on tour to New York until 16 November. The public pre-sale exhibition in London runs from 4 to 8 December.
*Images: Christie’s
