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 17th century Netherlandish artist Edwaert Colyer. This is Warrender’s only known easel painting.
Updated before 2020
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artist:Thomas Warrender (1662 - about 1715) Scottish
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title:Still Life
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date created:1708
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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:
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...