Still-life
About this artwork
Although apparently a straightforward trompe l’oeil (illusionist) still-life, an inscription on the back of this picture claims that it has a symbolic message. The note reads '2 Royalist Allegorical Pictures/Explanation in the Keeping of the/family'. This explanation having been lost, the precise meaning of the picture has defied convincing interpretation. In its general composition the painting evokes the still-life paintings of the seventeenth century Netherlandish artist Edwaert Colyer. This is Warrender’s only known easel painting.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Thomas WarrenderScottish (1662 - about 1715)
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title:Still-life
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date created:Unknown
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materials:Oil on canvas
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measurements:59.10 x 74.30 cm; Framed: 71.00 x 87.10 x 7.50 cm
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object type:
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credit line:Purchased 1980
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accession number:NG 2404
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gallery:
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artwork photographed by:Antonia Reeve
Thomas Warrender
Thomas Warrender
Thomas Warrender was born in January 1662 in Haddington, East Lothian. In 1673 he was apprenticed to John Tait, whose work does not survive. Warrender became a burgess (freeman) of Haddington and also of Edinburgh where he was admitted as a guild brother in 1692. In the late 1690s he was working as...