Glasses in a Basket (Stoskopff)

Glasses in a Basket
French: Corbeille de verres
ArtistSebastian Stoskopff
Year1644
Mediumoil painting on canvas
MovementBaroque painting
Still life
Subjectglassware in a basket
Dimensions52 cm × 63 cm (20 in × 25 in)[1]
LocationMusée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame, Strasbourg
Accessionbetween 1931 and 1959

Glasses in a Basket is a 1644 Baroque still life painting by the Alsatian artist Sebastian Stoskopff. It is on display in the Musée de l'Œuvre Notre-Dame of Strasbourg, France. Its inventory number is MBA 1281 ("MBA" stands for Musée des Beaux-Arts).[2][1]

The painting is representative for the new phase in Stoskopff's work, after he had settled again in his hometown after many years in Paris and demonstrated the extent of his art in his masterpiece from 1641, The Great Vanity. Stoskopff then concentrated on the pictorial rendition of the transparency and the fragility of glass, the reflections of light and contrasts in thickness among and between glasses, etc. These paintings were highly praised and sought after by collectors; Cardinal Richelieu himself owned one, although it is not known if it was MBA 1281.[1][3]

Still lifes depicting glassware had been pioneered by the painter Georg Flegel, but Stoskopff perfected the genre by concentrating essentially on the transparency and translucency. While MBA 1281 depicts luxury glassware, other paintings (examples below) sometimes depict ordinary drinking glasses. The broken glass alludes to the frailty of existence and serves as a Memento mori.[1][3]

  1. ^ a b c d Dupeux, Cécile (December 2013). Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame. Arts du Moyen-Âge et de la Renaissance. Strasbourg: Éditions des Musées de Strasbourg. p. 188. ISBN 9782351251058.
  2. ^ Dupeux, Cécile (December 1999). Strasbourg - Musée de l'Oeuvre Notre-Dame. Paris: Éditions Scala. pp. 92–93. ISBN 2-86656-223-2.
  3. ^ a b Dupeux, Cécile; Gatineau, Barbara (April 2015). D'argent, de nacre et d'os. Strasbourg: Musées de la ville de Strasbourg. ISBN 978-2-3512-5132-4.