This exquisite mid-19th-century still life by Danish-German painter Theude Grönland (1817-1876) depicts an abundant arrangement of roses, poppies and grapes, enlivened by a butterfly resting upon a yellow bloom.

Grönland was among the most accomplished European still-life painters of his generation. Trained at the Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, he settled in Paris during the 1840s and achieved considerable international success, winning a first-class gold medal in 1848 and a second-class medal at the Exposition Universelle of 1855. He also spent extended periods in Britain and exhibited at the Royal Academy in London.

Here, his extraordinary powers of observation are apparent throughout. Drops of water cling to the yellow roses, individual grapes possess a delicate translucency, while leaves curl and overlap in varying shades of green. The butterfly at the centre provides the composition with its most charming detail, introducing a fleeting moment of life among the gathered flowers.

Yet Grönland regarded such precision as a means rather than an end. In correspondence with his former teacher J. L. Lund, he explained his desire to execute individual details accurately while bringing them together into a whole capable of expressing emotion and poetic content. His flower and fruit paintings could consequently carry associations with the seasons and stages of life.

This work seems particularly suited to such an interpretation. Roses are in magnificent bloom, poppies have opened, and grapes have ripened, while a butterfly rests momentarily among them. Everything appears alive and abundant, yet everything is also transient. Grönland captures nature at a beautiful moment that cannot last.

The reverse reveals an exceptional history.

An inscription by the prominent British collector Henry Sanford Bicknell (1818-1880) records the painting as being “From Theodore Grönland” in February 1852, indicating that Bicknell acquired it directly from the artist. This was precisely the period in which Grönland was establishing an important British following.

Bicknell belonged to an extraordinary artistic family. His father, Elhanan Bicknell, formed one of the celebrated collections of contemporary British art of the Victorian period, while Henry married Christine Roberts, daughter of the distinguished artist David Roberts RA. Henry was himself a significant collector and moved within a cultural circle that included Charles Dickens, who addressed surviving correspondence to him affectionately as “My Dear Bicknell”.

The little Grönland remained with Bicknell for more than a quarter of a century. 

A second inscription records that in 1878, he gave it to his daughter Laura as a birthday present. Laura had been a young child when the painting entered her father's collection in 1852 and would therefore have grown up with it.

One can imagine that among the many paintings surrounding the Bicknell family, this particularly intimate picture of flowers, fruit and a butterfly might have captured her affection. Perhaps Henry knew precisely which painting his daughter would choose.

Signed in the lower left and held in its original gilt frame.