(active in Hanau between 1620 and 1638)
A flower still life in a Berkemeyer glass,
oil on copper, 16.2 x 13.3 cm, framed

On the reverse the panelmaker’s mark: CK

Provenance:
Private collection, Belgium

After his training in the studio of his father, who was the still life painter Daniel Soreau (who died in 1619), and several years spent with his relative, Peter Binoit, in Hanau, Isaac Soreau, the twin brother of the painter Peter Soreau, went to Antwerp around 1626. There he collaborated with Jacob van Hulsdonck. Fred Meijer assumes that Soreau, who was not a member of the Antwerp guild of painters and was therefore not authorised to sell his pictures under his own name, marketed them under the name of his colleague Van Hulsdonck (see F. Meijer, The Collection of Dutch and Flemish Paintings Bequeathed by Daisy Linda Ward to the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford/Zwolle 2003, p. 281). This may also account for the fact that only a few signed paintings by Soreau, dating from the years 1626 to 1638, have survived.

Only two dated paintings by Soreau are known (one dated 1638 in the Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, and another, dated 1635, in a private collection), so that little can be said about his life and the development of his art. Most of his still life paintings depict floral arrangements in wicker baskets. A comparable flower still life in a glass vase was sold at Sotheby’s, New York, on 29 January 2009 as lot 42.

The present painting is listed in the RKD files as an authentic work by Isaac Soreau under no. 212599.