DAVID-EMILE-JOSEPH DE NOTER (Ghent 1825 – Algiers 1892)
A Still Life with Fruit, Wine Cooler, Monkey, Parrots and a Turtle in a Portico
watercolor on paper
signed in the bottom right David de Noter
12 7/8 x 17 1/8 inches (32.8 x 43.6 cm.)
PROVENANCE
Private Collection, Paris
David-Emile-Joseph De Noter came from a family of artists. His father Jean-Baptiste de Noter, his uncle Pierre François, cousins Anne, Auguste and Josephine, as well as his son Raphaël-Marie all painted specializing in either landscapes or fruit and flowers. David’s works were devoted to fruit and flowers as well as interiors and genre scenes that tended to focus on still life elements, executed in oil and watercolor. He worked in Brussels and exhibited at the Salon there in 1845 where he won a silver medal and in 1854 a gold medal. In 1853, 1855 and 1864 David exhibited at the Paris Salon. In 1864 he shared a studio with Jules Adolphe Goupil in Paris [1] and collaborated together on at least one painting A Dining-Room which hung in a New York Museum, (unfortunately unidentified in the 1885 recording). [2] He also collaborated with Gustav Koller, Louis Tuerlinckx and Alfred Stevens. He spent his last years living and working in Algiers. [3]
De Noter’s works were acquired by the museums of Amsterdam, Breslau, Brussels, Cambrai, Coutrai, Malines, Mulhouse, Philadelphia, Prague and St. Petersburg. [4]
The artist in this work has meticulously rendered an assemblage of a bounty of fruit enhanced by the delightful additions of a parrot, monkey and turtle. The startled expression of the monkey upon viewing the turtle emerge from the shadow of the wine cooler injects a note of sly humor. The backdrop of columns, urn, draped curtain, trees and blue sky serve as a glorious cap to this ode of abundance. The uniting of divergent elements in his still lifes was a hallmark of De Noter and one which caused other artists to engage him to enhance their own compositions. It is also for this reason that his compilations continue to delight.
[1] Biographical information taken from E. Benezit, “David Emil Joseph de Noter” in Dictionnaire des Peintres, Sculpteurs, Dessinateurs et Graveurs, volume 7, Libraire Grund, Paris, 1976, p. 757; P. & V. Berko, “David, Emile, Joseph de Noter” in Dictionary of Belgian Painters born between 1750 & 1875, Editions Laconti, Brussels, 1981, p. 211; William G. Flippo, “David Emile Joseph de Noter and Family” in Lexicon of the Belgian Romantic Painters, International Art Press, Antwerp 1981, unpaginated; and “David E.J. de Noter” in Le Dictionnaire des Peintres Belges du XIVe siècle à nos jours, La Renaissance du Livre, Brussels, 1995, p. 332.
[2] John Denison Champlin Jr. & Charles C. Perkins, “Jules Adolphe Goupil”, Cyclopedia of Painters and Paintings, volume II, Charles Scribner’s Sons, New York, 1900, p. 161.
[3] Champlin & Perkins, “David de Noter”, op. cit., p. 353; Benezit, op. cit., p. 757; Flippo, op. cit.; and Le Dictionnaire des Peintres Belges, op. cit., p. 332.
[4] Benezit, op. cit., p. 757; Berko, op. cit., p. 211; Flippo, op. cit.;