Gooseberries on a Table

About the Artwork

Coorte worked in Middelburg, a wealthy maritime city in the southern part of the Netherlands that fostered a poetic, scientific, and spiritual examination of the natural world. Gooseberries—a modest, local pleasure—could be picked in the wild, although Dutch gardeners in the 1600s were the first to cultivate them to improve their taste. The strong illumination gives the plant a stark grandeur, despite the small scale, and the dark background emphasizes the fruit's delicate translucency. The dessicated flower petals and waxy leaves contrast with the succulent gooseberries, with their skin on the verge of bursting.

Inscriptions

Signed lower left: "A Coorte / 1701"

Exhibition history

The Year in Review for 1987. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (February 24-April 17, 1988). Still-Life Paintings from the Netherlands, 1550-1720. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, Netherlands (June 19-September 19, 1999); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 31, 1999-January 9, 2000). Small Wonders: Dutch Still Lifes by Adriaen Coorte. National Gallery of Art, Landover, MD (organizer) (June 29-September 28, 2003).

Quick Overview

Artist: Adriaen Coorte (Dutch, 1660–1707)
Date: 1701
Medium: oil on paper mounted on wood
Dimensions: Framed: 45.5 x 38.5 x 4.5 cm (17 15/16 x 15 3/16 x 1 3/4 in.); Unframed: 29.7 x 22.8 cm (11 11/16 x 9 in.)
Type: Painting
Classification: Painting
Department: European Painting and Sculpture
Credit line: Leonard C. Hanna Jr. Fund
Accession no.: 1987.32

Provenance

-1907: Auguste Coster [d. 1907], Brussels 1907: (Le Roy, Brussels, Coster sale, April 4-6, 1907, lot 69, possibly sold to Max Massot) -1964: Max Massot, Belgium, sold to P. de Boer 1964: (Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, sold to Mrs. Wulf, The Hague)1 1964-1975: Mrs. Wulf, The Hague, exchanged with P. de Boer for a marine painting by J. van Diest 1975: (Kunsthandel P. de Boer, Amsterdam, sold to Johnny Oppenheimer) 1975-1986: Johnny Oppenheimer, Tönnersjö, Eldsberga, Sweden, consigned to Charles Roelofsz Gallery, Amsterdam1 1986: (Charles Roelofsz Gallery, Amsterdam) 1986: (Sam Nijstad, The Hague, and K. Waterman Gallery, Amsterdam, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art) 1987-: The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Data retrieved from the Cleveland Museum of Art on October 8, 2026. The museum may have updated its record since.