thumb|Still Life with Shells (1697)
Adriaen Coorte (ca. 1665 – after 1707) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of still lifes, who signed works between 1683 and 1707.
He painted small and unpretentious still lifes in a style more typical of the first half of the century, and was "one of the last practitioners of this intimate category".Slive, p. 319 Biography
Very little is known of his life, but he is assumed to have been born and died in Middelburg.
He became a pupil of Melchior d'Hondecoeter around 1680 in Amsterdam.
Hondecoeter is known for repetitions of certain birds in certain poses, and he apparently took on pupils who were set to work copying these into their compositions.
They form an unmistakable signature in the work of his students, and Coorte is no exception:
File:Adriaen Coorte - Pelican and ducks in a mountain landscape.7.jpg|Pelican and ducks in a mountain landscape, by Coorte File:Melchior d'Hondecoeter - Een pelikaan en ander gevogelte bij een waterbassin, bekend als 'Het drijvend veertje' - Google Art Project.jpg|The Floating Feather, with the same pelican, by Hondecoeter File:Adriaen Coorte - Asparagus, Gooseberries and Strawberries in a Window, with a View of a Bird in a Tree.jpg|Painting with a Hoopoe, by Coorte File:Vogels op een balustrade Rijksmuseum SK-A-695.jpeg|Painting with a similar Hoopoe, by Hondecoeter
From 1683 he seems to have returned to Middelburg, where he set up a workshop and signed his small, carefully balanced minimalist still lifes.
He often painted on paper that was glued to a wooden panel.
About 80 signed works by him have been catalogued, and nearly all of them follow the same pattern; small arrangements of fruits, vegetables, or shells on a stone slab, lit from above, with the dark background typical of still lifes earlier in the century.
Instead of the Chinese or silver vessels favoured by his contemporaries, his tableware is very basic pottery.
"Objects and light are studied intensely, and are painted with a wondrous tenderness".
Neither his birth nor death date is certain, and archival evidence only exists in Middelburg for his membership in the Guild of St. Luke there from 1695 onwards, when he was fined for selling a painting without being a member of the guild.
His works appear frequently in contemporary Middelburg taxation inventories Works
thumb|Still Life with Asparagus, Rijksmuseum (1697) Coorte was apparently not well known to his contemporaries outside the small city of Middelburg and, like Vermeer a century before, he was almost entirely forgotten until the 1950s, when the Dutch art historian Laurens J. Bol revived his reputation, beginning with an article in 1952, and finally publishing the first monograph and catalogue raisonné on Coorte in 1977 (Adriaen Coorte, Amsterdam).Slive, 338 (note 1 to Chapter 17)  Bol arranged an exhibition of 35 examples of Coorte's work in 1958 at the Dordrechts Museum, which became a sensation in the Netherlands, with the poets Hans Faverey and Ed Leeflang both being inspired by the paintings.
In 2003 there was an exhibition at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.NGA exhibition brochure   In 2008 a new travelling exhibition was set up; Ode to Coorte, that was as nearly as successful, making Coorte the most celebrated "rediscovered" Dutch Baroque painter of recent decades.
Testifying to Coorte's recent popularity is the December 1st, 2009 auction of two of his new-found paintings, which each sold for more than ten times the estimated price.
File:Adriaen Coorte - Strawberries in a Stone Jar - sold 1-dec-2009.jpg|Strawberries in a Stone Jar, sold 1 December 2009 File:Adriaen Coorte - Still life with peach and two apricots - sold 1-dec-2009.jpg|Still life with peach and two apricots, sold 1 December 2009
A new price record for the artist was set at the 3 December 2014 Sotheby's auction when a painting called Three peaches on a stone ledge with a red admiral butterfly sold for £3,444,500.
File:Adriaen Coorte - Three peaches on a stone ledge with a Painted Lady butterfly.jpg|Three peaches on a stone ledge with a Painted Lady butterfly, oil on paper, 31.3 x 23.3 cm, monogrammed "AC" and dated 1693-1695 based on compositional characteristics File:Coorte arperges.jpg|Still Life with Asparagus and Red Currants<br> Nat.
Gallery of Art (1696) File:Coorte 5.jpg| Strawberries<br> Mauritshuis (1696) File:Coorte 4.jpg| Asparagus with strawberries and gooseberries<br>Dordrechts Museum (1698) File:Adriaen Coorte - Three Medlars with a Butterfly - WGA05210.jpg|Still Life with Three Medlars(1705)
His paintings have been compared to Spanish Bodegones, but he may also have been influenced by older painters:
File:Bodegón de recipientes (Zurbarán).jpg|Bodegón by Francisco Zurbarán.
File:Fra Juan Sánchez Cotán 001.jpg|Bodegón by Juan Sánchez Cotán.
File:Juan van der Hamen -Still Life with artichokes, figs, cherries peaches and apples, 1629.jpg|Bodegón by Juan van der Hamen.
File:Luis Melendez, Still Life with Salmon,Lemon and three Vessels,1772 Museo del Prado Madrid.jpg|Bodegón by Luis Egidio Melendez.
File:Pompejanischer Maler um 70 001.jpg|Classic Trompe-l'œil wall painting in Pompeii.
Notes
References
Seymour Slive, Dutch Painting, 1600-1800, Yale UP, 1995,
Dordt's museum on Ode to Coorte
Further reading
External links
Adriaen Coorte: A Unique Late 17th Century Dutch Still Life Painter, by Laurens J. Bol, Van Gorkum, 1977
Adriaen Coorte op Artcyclopedia
Adriaen Coorte, four still lifes in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam
