In full blossom

in full bloom

IN FULL BLOOM

IN FULL BLOOM Ariane van Suchtelen Fred G. Meijer Erik A. de Jong Epco Runia Charlotte Rulkens Marya Albrecht et al.

MAURITSHUIS THE HAGUE WA ANDERS PUBL ISHERS Z WO L L E

The exhibition In Full Bloom has been made possible by: VriendenLoterij Friends of the Mauritshuis Foundation Prince Bernhard Culture Fund Zabawas Foundation M.A.O.C. Gravin van Bylandt Fund Fonds 21

foreword Martine Gosselink 6

amazement and admiration the perception of floral still lifes in the long seventeenth century

Fred G. Meijer

on women, botany and the art of flower painting Ariane van Suchtelen 35

earthly stars on the worship of flora

Erik A. de Jong 67

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the ideal bouquet looking at seventeenth-century flower still lifes

Epco Runia 87

give it a buzz! insects in flower still lifes

Charlotte Rulkens 101

lifelike flowers aspects of painting techniques and the use of materials

Marya Albrecht, Sabrina Meloni, Carol Pottasch, Abbie Vandivere 119

footnotes

literature

exhibited works

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138

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M A R TI NE GOS S EL I NK

F OR EWOR D

Celebrations call for flowers. And big celebrations, like a 200th anniversary, call for masses of flowers. In 2022 the Mauritshuis will reach the venerable age of 200. We should be very grateful to King William I, because it was he who decided, in 1822, that the former residence of Johan Maurits would be the perfect accommodation for his marvellous collection of paintings. The royal collection could not have been housed in a better place. It is strategically located right next to the Binnenhof in the heart of The Hague. Its position just off the Plein is striking and majestic. And the building itself is magnificent: a textbook example of Dutch Classicism: Dutch because of the typical brickwork and classical because of its symmetry, the Ionic columns, the cornice above, and, at the very top, the triangular pediment. The festoons of flowers on the façade add the finishing touch.

If you visit the museum in this jubilee year you will find the building in a sea of flowers – in the courtyard, on the façade, even in the foyer. No one could fail to notice that a big celebration is taking place. We suggest you follow your nose to the exhibition space, where the designers of Tom Postma Design have installed walls of bio-laminate, into which thousands of real flowers have been pressed.

This evocative design is as resourceful as it is durable, because after the exhibition, furniture will be made of this material. But until then, the most flamboyant, sumptuous and beautiful bouquets will hang on these flowered walls, waiting for admirers.

In Full Bloom is a metaphor for the Mauritshuis itself. After two centuries, the museum is bustling with life more than ever before. This bicentenary exhibition allows us to show our own collection of Dutch flower still lifes of the seventeenth century, a collection that is unparalleled, owing in part to the outstanding acquisitions made in recent years. Together with a large number of works put at our disposal by both Dutch and foreign lenders, they create a colourful palette of painted beauty. Often the carefully arranged bouquets go beyond mere aesthetic beauty: they also tell us about transience, fecundity, love and the botanical discoveries of the seventeenth century.

In other cases, it is the silent splendour of the bouquet that is a source of comfort and tenderness. But regardless of the atmosphere they evoke, all of these flowers seem deceptively real.

In Full Bloom pays special attention to the important role played by a number of female painters, collectors and researchers in the field of botany and the genre of flower painting. We follow the history of the painted bouquet from its very beginnings, starting with the origin of the genre and even what preceded it. Indigenous species were gradually supplemented with flowers brought by ship captains and merchants from Asia, Africa and the

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Americas. Scientists and plant lovers corresponded with one another about newly discovered flora and exchanged seeds and bulbs. Proud amateurs laid out botanical gardens. At the universities, professors and students alike paraded down the paths of the Hortus Botanicus, with magnifying glasses and pincers in hand. The tulip, imported from Persia and Turkey, caused wild speculation in tulip bulbs and the Dutch became addicted to its chameleonic manifestations.

Here I would like to give curator Ariane van Suchtelen a figurative bunch of flowers as a token of gratitude for her enthusiastic involvement in this exhibition. She was not only responsible for the conceptual framework and the compilation of this exhibition but also served as author and editor of the catalogue. We are very grateful to her and all the other authors for their inspiring contributions to this publication. Fred G. Meijer, a specialist in the field of Dutch flower painting of the seventeenth century, discusses the contemporary appreciation of flower still lifes. Ariane van Suchtelen’s contribution sheds light on the remarkable role of women in both botany and flower painting in the seventeenth century. ARTIS professor (emeritus) Erik A. de Jong delves into the world of collecting and studying plants in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and also explores the role of garden culture, which became increasingly important to the presentation and depiction of flowers and plants. Epco Runia, Head of Collections and Education at the Rembrandthuis, made a thorough study of our collection of flower still lifes when he was still working at the Mauritshuis. In his essay he helps viewers to understand flower still lifes by outlining the developments in their visual aspects and by examining the evolution of this genre. The essay by Charlotte Rulkens, until recently a junior curator at the Mauritshuis, contains findings from her Master’s thesis on the insects in flower still lifes. Marya Albrecht wrote, in collaboration with the other conservators at the Mauritshuis – Sabrina Meloni, Carol Pottasch and Abbie Vandivere – the essay on painting techniques and the use of materials in several of the museum’s flower still lifes. These are the first findings of a larger research project set up to examine all the still lifes in our collection in preparation for a forthcoming collection catalogue. Isaac Messina, our Fullbright-American-Friends Conservation Intern, restored a flower still life by Balthasar van der Ast that is now on display in the exhibition. At the Kröller-Müller Museum, an exceptional painting by the Southern Netherlandish artist Clara Peeters was restored specially for this exhibition.

Hedwig Wösten, has contributed to the successful realisation of the exhibition. The design of the exhibition was entrusted to Tom Postma Design. Gert Jan Slagter designed this book, which was published by Waanders Publishers, and Diane Webb was responsible for the English translation.

This exhibition was made possible by the generous support of the VriendenLoterij, our Friends of the Mauritshuis Foundation, the Zabawas Foundation, the Prince Bernhard Culture Fund, Fonds 21 and the M.A.O.C. Gravin van Bylandt Fund. We also owe a debt of gratitude to Marion Ackermann, Nadia Baadj, Lisanne den Besten, Tanja de Boer, Peter van den Brink, Mar Borobia, Marieke van Delft, Ann Demeester, Taco Dibbits, Bernd Ebert, Sjarel Ex, Esther van Gelder, Emilie Gordenker, Anneke Groen, Sabine Haag, Willem Jan Hoogsteder, Wim Hupperetz, Bart Jaski, Judikje Kiers, Margje Leeuwestein, Leo Lucassen, Ger Luijten, Dani Mileo, Tom van der Molen, Charles de Mooij, Hans Mulder, Uta Neidhardt, Joris Nielander, Lisette Pelsers, Sabine Pénot, Marrigje Rikken, Pieter Roelofs, Manja Rottink, Timothy Rub, Marjan Ruiter, Caroline van Santen, Katlijne Van der Stighelen, Jennifer Thompson, Emilie den Tonkelaar, Ilona van Tuinen, Matthias Ubl, Annika Williams and Eva van Zuien.

The Netherlands has a long history of engagement with countless indigenous and exotic flower species. The Dutch have always loved flowers – in parks, in forests, on balconies, in gardens and naturally in paintings. That love has never withered. Our flower still lifes are among the most appreciated works of art in the collection.

We, the staff of the Mauritshuis, wish all botanists and flower worshippers an enjoyable and inspiring visit to the overwhelming floral splendour of In Full Bloom.

We are greatly indebted to our lenders: museums in the Netherlands and abroad, as well as several private collectors who were willing to part temporarily with their precious works of art. Without their generosity this exhibition could not have taken place. Every member of the project group In Full Bloom, led by project manager

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amazement and admiration F R E D G . MEIJER

the perception of floral still lifes in the long seventeenth century

The flower still life emerged as a fully fledged genre in painting at the beginning of the seventeenth century; it then underwent rapid development and grew so much in popularity that the result was a high level of appreciation that has never declined. How were still lifes of flowers regarded in the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries? It will become apparent from this essay that, besides exerting a decorative appeal, these painted flowers primarily aroused amazement and admiration.

The Lowest Category

In contrast to art lovers, seventeenth-century art theorists did not rate the flower still life very highly. True art, they believed, concerned itself with the probing portrayal of human emotions, particularly in history paintings, which portray stories from the Bible, history and mythology.

In his Inleydinge tot de hooge schoole der schilderkonst (Introduction to the Academy of Painting) of 1678, Samuel van Hoogstraten writes that only painters of the lowest category paint flower still lifes. A painter of this kind appears ‘with sweeping festoons or tresses of flower garlands, and puts multicolored bouquets in vessels or vases’, but in his opinion these artists should know that they are just ordinary foot soldiers in the army of art.1 Further on he affirms this again: ‘Nevertheless, it is certain that however nicely any flowers, fruits, or other

still lifes, as we call them, are painted, these paintings cannot be assessed any higher than in the first degree of artworks, even if they are well executed to the point of deception’ by Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1684), Daniël Seghers (1590-1661), or by the legendary Greek painters Zeuxis and Parrhasius.2 The ability to paint flowers was not unimportant, in Van Hoogstraten’s opinion, but then mainly as accessories to add lustre to lofty history pieces.

In general, the art lovers and collectors of his time thought very differently about this.

‘I have invested all my skill in this picture. I do not believe that so many rare and different flowers have ever been painted before, nor rendered so painstakingly: it will be a fine sight in the winter’, wrote Jan Brueghel I (15681625) in 1606 to his patron in Milan, Cardinal Federico Borromeo. ‘Under the flowers I have painted a jewel with coins, [and] rarities from the sea. It is up to Your Honour to judge whether or not flowers surpass gold and jewels.’3 Brueghel’s majestic still life of flowers – the first by his hand – is still to be found in Milan (fig. 1). It was clearly a tour-de-force: the artist wrote that he had depicted ‘more than 100’ flowers (102 species can be identified) ‘from life’. He claimed to have travelled for this purpose to the gardens of the archdukes, Albert and Isabella, in Brussels, among other places, in order to record flowers that were not available in Antwerp. In his letters to Borromeo,

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1 Jan Brueghel I, Flowers in a Stoneware Jug, 1606.

Oil on copper, 65 x 45 cm.

Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan

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Brueghel made much of his achievement – and rightly so – and the recipient was extremely satisfied with his work: ‘Butterflies flutter around, one feels the freshness of the plants’, wrote Borromeo later. The painting hung in his study, where, whenever possible, he also had vases of flowers. ‘He indicates the cost of his work with the value of the jewels [painted next to the vase], a sum which I did in fact pay to the artist.’4

High Prices

Such first-hand accounts of the genesis and appreciation of seventeenth-century still lifes of flowers are fairly rare.

Frequently an impression of the regard in which flower pieces were held can be obtained only by a roundabout route. Nor is there much clarity about the asking prices and the payments made. Even when written sources do mention prices, it is not often possible to link them to identifiable works. Borromeo certainly paid Brueghel a substantial sum for his flower painting, but what monetary value did he assign to the jewel depicted, and how does it relate to present-day prices and rates of exchange? It is impossible to give an unequivocal answer to that question. Maria Bosschaert, daughter of the painter Ambrosius Bosschaert I (1573-1621), noted that her father had requested 1,000 guilders for a flower painting that he delivered in 1621 to the steward of the stadholder, Prince Maurits, in The Hague – while there, Bosschaert died unexpectedly.5 It is assumed that the work in question is now in Stockholm; that painting is absolutely first-rate (fig. 2). Documents dating from 1617 mention a debt of 240 guilders owed by one Ludolf van Lintsenich to Bosschaert for a basket of flowers painted on copper, another debt of 200 guilders for a large flower piece and yet another 200-guilder debt for two (smaller) flower paintings in ebony frames.6 The most beautiful basket of flowers painted on copper by Bosschaert that is known today, which dates from 1614, is now in Los Angeles (fig. 3), but there is no proof that it is the painting recorded in 1617.7 Information dating from the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries on the prices paid for still lifes of flowers is rather scarce, and only rarely can such information be linked to known or extant works. It is clear, however, that the quality of flower still lifes varied greatly, as did the sums paid for them. The high prices paid for those by Brueghel and Bosschaert – and later, too, for flower pieces by Jan Davidsz de Heem, Rachel Ruysch (1664-1750) and Jan van Huijsum (1682-1749) – are fitting for work that was among the best on the market.

Thus we read in Arnold Houbraken’s Groote Schouburgh der Nederlandsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen (Great Theatre of Netherlandish Painters and Paintresses) of 1718 about a substantial sum of money that De Heem received for a painting in or shortly before 1672: ‘Among them all, a certain large scene stood out, with a cartouche of

2 Ambrosius Bosschaert I, Flowers in a Vase, 1620.

Panel, 130.5 x 85.5 cm.

Nationalmuseum, Stockholm

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christoffel van den berghe Flowers in a Stone Niche, 1617 Copper, 37.6 x 29.5 cm.

Philadelphia Museum of Art (John G. Johnson Collection, 1917) Butterflies, caterpillars and other insects swarm around this flower still life by the Middelburg painter Christoffel van den Berghe (1590-1645). A peacock butterfly has alighted on the edge of the natural stone niche, whose weathered look is due to the cracks and chips in the stone. The scene is further enlivened by two Chinese Wan-Li bowls and a couple of exotic shells. These costly rarities from far-away places (including many of the flowers) were sought after by wealthy collectors.

One advantage of a painted bouquet is that the blooms never wilt.

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balthasar van der ast Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase and Shells, 1640-1650 Panel, 43 x 53 cm.

Mauritshuis, The Hague (bequest of J.H. Loudon to the Friends of the Mauritshuis Foundation, 1996) No more than fifteen flowers are loosely arranged in a Wan-Li vase from far-off China. The flowers fan out gracefully, and every detail is clearly distinguishable.

On the stone plinth lies a display of exotic shells with a caterpillar in the middle, which seems to turn around towards the bouquet behind it. Balthasar van der Ast (1593-1657) of Middelburg was trained by his brotherin-law, the flower specialist Ambrosius Bosschaert, who was twenty years his senior.

This is a mature work by Van der Ast’s hand, painted in the last phase of his career, when he was living in Delft.

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the ideal bouquet E P C O R U NIA

looking at seventeenth-century flower still lifes

Some people look down their noses at flower still lifes.

They consider them decorative trifles, nice for brightening up your interior. But that is unfair. There is actually quite a lot going on in seventeenth-century flower still lifes: to begin with, these bouquets could not exist in reality as they are seen in paintings. These are no ordinary bunches of flowers but ideal bouquets, invented by the artists. But what ideal were they pursuing? And did this experience any development? Let’s take a closer look at a number of flower still lifes, because as far as ideal bouquets are concerned, no two are alike.

Accuracy

We begin with a highlight from the early years of the genre, the painting by Ambrosius Bosschaert I (1573-1621) of around 1618 (fig. 1). Here Bosschaert painted a bouquet that is carefully arranged in a costly glass vase with gilt decorations. It consists of a large number of flowers, thirty different species in all. Oddly enough, it does not include all kinds of flowers that are very common in the Netherlands, such as buttercups, dandelions and daisies.

Bosschaert had an obvious preference for cultivated species, such as the Batavian rose, the carnation and the tulip, which were still quite rare at this time. Something else you might notice is that these species do not actually bloom at the same time. Tulips, which bloom in the

spring, stand unfussily in the vase along with true summer flowers like roses. Moreover, Bosschaert did not depict this imaginary bouquet very realistically. Admittedly, the flowers stand in a vase with water, but the bouquet is rather stiff and symmetrical, and all the flowers are assembled at the front of the vase. A bouquet arranged like this would start drooping over the side of the vase in no time, and you wonder whether the stems of the uppermost flowers are long enough to reach the water.

What is going on here? Couldn’t Bosschaert paint a convincing bouquet? Or was that less important to him, because he had another objective in mind?

Judging from his painting, Bosschaert was mainly interested in the individual flowers. Each one is extremely true to life and depicted with great care. Every flower is plainly visible, with its most recognisable side turned towards us. And all the flowers display their own bright colours: the red anemone with its yellow heart, the blue columbine with its spurs and the voluptuous pink roses. The flowers’ specific characteristics have been meticulously captured, so it is no problem at all to identify them. This is also due to Bosschaert’s very precise manner of painting, with barely visible brushstrokes, which makes it possible to discern the tiniest details. What is more, Bosschaert’s choice of uniform lighting means that not a single flower is obscured by shadow. The only bloom that is slightly hidden is the purple snake’s-head fritillary, slightly

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1 Ambrosius Bosschaert I, Vase of Flowers in a Window, c.1618. Panel, 64 x 46 cm.

Mauritshuis, The Hague (bequest A.A. des Tombes, 1903) 2 Detail of Ambrosius Bosschaert I (fig. 1)

above and to the left of centre, but even this species is easily recognisable.

In short, although the flowers are grouped together in a vase, the bouquet is still mainly a collection of single blooms. It was Bosschaert’s intention to put each individual flower in plain view. This explains his choice of a frontal arrangement, so that all the flowers have optimum exposure and are nicely spread out across the picture.

This painting offers us something that is not possible in reality. Bosschaert created an artful overview of the most beautiful flowers that he knew, brought together in one vase and in glorious full bloom.

Rarity

Bosschaert’s somewhat documentary approach can be seen in many flower still lifes that originated in the period 1600-1630. The breeding ground for this type of composition can be sought in the growing interest in rarities. At a time when the Dutch, with their expansionist tendencies, were conquering new territories, those who stayed at home became increasingly fascinated with all the weird and wonderful things brought home by the travellers. Stuffed animals, porcelain, drums, jewellery, minerals, shells – everything that had previously been unknown in the Low Countries was collected and studied in the art cabinets of wealthy collectors. The collectibles

included products of nature (naturalia) as well as artistic objects made by human hands (artificialia). Flowers, too, were among these rarities. In nearly every Dutch city one could find plant enthusiasts who collected strange specimens and cultivated each and every one of them with great care, afterwards exchanging their newly acquired knowledge and experiences. But the flowers grown by these amateur botanists were granted only a short life and were unsuitable as collector’s items destined for art cabinets.

The painters of flower still lifes seem to have capitalised on this situation. In these paintings the two parts of a collection of rarities are united: naturalia (the flowers) and artificialia (the artwork). We may consider them the artificial counterpart of a botanical garden with rare flowers, but one that kept well and could be enjoyed in all seasons, year in and year out. It is even possible that the flower still life found most of its buyers among the intellectual upper crust of collectors of rarities and among the devotees of botanical science.

If we take another look at Bosschaert’s painting with this in mind, our attention is drawn to the two exotic shells lying next to the vase: a Nerita textilis from the Indian Ocean and a Hexaplex cichoreus from the Pacific Ocean (fig. 2). They are typical of the collector’s items found in seventeenth-century art cabinets. The landscape in the background of Bosschaert’s still life can also be seen as a

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reference to collections of rarities, since it strongly recalls the sixteenth-century ‘world landscapes’ that offer, at a glance, an overview of the entire earth. Bosschaert’s choice of such a landscape as a backdrop emphasises the idea that here he is bringing the world within reach, in this case the world of botanical beauty as he knew it.

Diversity

3 Balthasar van der Ast,

A Single Tulip (possibly ‘Zomerschoon’, ‘Summer Beauty’), c.1625. Panel,

26.5 x 20 cm. Private collection (see p. 21, fig. 11)

Two factors were especially important to the development of the early flower still life: the precise depiction of the individual flowers and the rarity of those flowers. A third factor is the diversity of species. A bunch of flowers consisting of roses or tulips only, such as those commonly found in homes today, was not considered attractive.

Flower painters were probably afraid that a lack of variety would soon lead to boredom. It was not unusual, therefore, to combine thirty species or more, as seen in Bosschaert’s bouquet.

These three ideal characteristics of early flower still lifes are mentioned in a letter written in 1606 by the Flemish painter Jan Brueghel (1568-1625) to his patron, the Italian cardinal Federico Borromeo (cf. p. 11).1 This exceptional document is one of the few written sources in which a painter of flower still lifes talks about his work.

Brueghel, who painted a flower still life for the cardinal, makes a point of explaining that he studied and painted all the flowers from nature, and then goes on to say: ‘I do not believe that so many rare and different flowers have ever been painted before, nor rendered so painstakingly.’

Precision, rarity and diversity – Brueghel presents all three as evidence of his extraordinary accomplishment.

Of course there are always exceptions to the rule. The ideal of diversity was occasionally abandoned: by Balthasar van der Ast (1593-1657), for example, when he made a small painting of a single tulip around 1625 (fig 3). At the time, tulips had been known in Holland for only thirty years. They were rare and valuable, especially the ‘flamed’ varieties with serrated petals, as seen in this painting. Van der Ast placed the flower in a luxurious, gilt-mounted vase and set it in front of a dark background, against which the fresh colours stand out brightly. Thus he emphasised, in this small portrait of a tulip, that this flower was a costly rarity.

Naturalness

In the 1630s flower still lifes underwent a change. This is made clear by the large flower still life that Hans Bollongier (c.1600-1672/75) painted in 1639 (fig. 4). This bouquet is much less frontal and symmetric in conception than Bosschaert’s painting. It even has a somewhat untidy appearance: one of the tulips seems to stick out too much at the top, and some of the flowers are not clearly visible, either because they have been pushed out of view by other flowers or because they stand in shadow.

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4 Hans Bollongier,

Flower Still Life, 1639.

Panel, 68 x 54.5 cm.

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

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5 Willem van Aelst, Flower Still Life with a Timepiece, 1663. Canvas, 62.5 x 49 cm.

Mauritshuis, The Hague

The shadows were created by Bollongier’s illumination of the bouquet with a strong and concentrated source of light in order to heighten the contrast between light and dark. By painting the flowers at the back less brightly and concealing them in shadow, he enhanced the sense of depth, thus making the bouquet seem more voluminous. In Bosschaert’s still life, we saw each flower individually from an advantageous angle and displaying its characteristic colour. Here the colours are more subdued, more attuned to one another. All of this enabled Bollongier to achieve great unity in this bouquet. He did so at the expense of the recognisability of the individual species but to the benefit of overall naturalness. Bollongier apparently thought it important to make his bouquet look as though it had been painted from nature. This was obviously not the case, because here, too, we see flowers that do not bloom at the same time. The bouquet remains the artist’s construction, and yet it creates the illusion of existing in reality.

This change was in keeping with broader developments that were taking place in Dutch painting at this time.

Although paintings had long been intended for a small and generally well-educated elite, in the meantime the country’s rapidly increasing prosperity had produced a new group of well-to-do burghers, many of them merchants without much intellectual baggage. This group wanted luxury products such as paintings, and artists met this demand with new kinds of artworks based on recognisable subjects from the visible world. This led to the emergence of such subjects as the Dutch polder landscape, townscapes, still lifes and scenes of everyday life. No great knowledge was required to enjoy these artworks. The pleasure they afforded was visual in nature, because they were so deceptively true to life.

The flowers, too, were now no longer the exclusive domain of a small group of devotees and scientists. The tulip, for example, had become a very popular commodity.

Starting in 1634, the great profits to be made in the tulip trade tempted more and more people to take up this lucrative line of business. Within a couple of years this led to wild speculation of such unprecedented proportions that it has gone down in history as ‘tulip mania’. In February 1637 the bubble burst. The inevitable collapse of the market in tulip bulbs left hundreds of people penniless. Two years later Bollongier painted a bouquet in which a rare ‘flamed’ tulip is extremely well represented by no fewer than fourteen specimens. Thus we see tulips, but also other cultivated flowers, becoming less rare, as a result of which flower still lifes began to move from the world of scientists and connoisseurs to that of the prosperous middle class. Bosschaert’s striving to document each flower while depicting it to best advantage gave way to the ambition to paint a natural bouquet, a bouquet that could give pleasure to buyers with little or no botanical knowledge, a bouquet that was a perfect illusion of – but still an improvement upon – reality.

Sumptuousness

In the second half of the seventeenth century, the painters of flower still lifes were no longer satisfied with mere naturalness. Sumptuousness became their new aim. In the work of Willem van Aelst (1627-1683), for example, the flower still life underwent an upgrade, as it were. In his painting of 1663, the table on which the flowers stand is made of marble and the vase of silver, executed in a capricious lobate style that features organic forms and a dolphin’s head as the foot of the vase (fig. 5). Equally extraordinary is the timepiece next to the vase, a gold instrument in a crystal case. Even the flowers are more luxuriant. Old favourites like the tulip, the snake’s-head fritillary and the columbine have been forced to relinquish pride of place to lush double flowers such as the Provence rose, the Guelder rose and the opium poppy.

Van Aelst, working in the manner of a fijnschilder (‘fine painter’), paid a great deal of attention to the rendering of fabrics and materials. The satin ribbon of the timepiece instantly catches the eye, and the paper-thin petals of the rose are also depicted with great delicacy.

Moreover, Van Aelst was the first to create asymmetrical bouquets. He opened up the traditionally compact bunch of flowers and arranged them in a way that suggests one continuous movement, in this case running from the sprig of carnations hanging at lower left to the whimsical opium poppy at upper right. This diagonal, upward thrust is largely responsible for the luxuriance of this still life.

The ultimate in sumptuousness is seen in the bouquet painted by Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606-1684) in around 1670: not only does it consist of a colourful array of flowers, but it also features apricots, gooseberries, currants and cherries (fig. 6). The bouquet fills the entire surface of the painting, and even the space on either side of the bottle is filled with flowers and fruits that hang heavily over the neck of the bottle. The bouquet seems to be governed by a centrifugal force that makes the tulip, irises and lilies in particular seem to shoot out from the centre. This effect is reinforced by the golden ears of corn stuck here and there among the flowers, a novelty devised by De Heem.

Compared with the neatly arranged bouquets painted by Bosschaert fifty years earlier, De Heem’s painting comes across as a loud explosion of colour.

Enticement

The paintings by Van Aelst and De Heem are spectacular pieces whose sumptuousness would not be out of place in the monumental country houses of the Dutch regent class or even in the palaces of European royalty. Produced for the highest segment of the art market, they fetched high prices, much higher than the simple still lifes of breakfasts and banquets. These prices probably took into account the considerable amount of work involved in flower still lifes.

But the prices were also pushed up by the extravagance

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14 Ambrosius Bosschaert I, Bouquet in a Stone Niche, 1618. Copper, 73.7 x 57.6 cm.

Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen 15 Details of fig. 1 and fig. 14 with the same tulip and Siberian lily.

mean that the same flowers were always painted in the same way? A comparison of the tulips in the four paintings examined here can help us to answer that question (fig. 16a-d).

Tulips

Bosschaert generally painted his flowers wet-in-wet, carefully blending his brushstrokes into each other. He applied the paint thinly, with almost no impasto, resulting in a very smooth paint surface. To paint the red-and-white tulip at right in the bouquet in the Mauritshuis picture, he made use of lead white mixed with lead-tin yellow, while the red stripes were applied with vermilion (fig. 16a).

In the Persian tulip at upper left, he let the light-grey underlayer shine through in order to create shadow tones in the white. The red stripes in this flower were applied with a red lake, an organic pigment that has become more transparent with age, so that it now allows the grey underlayer to shine through. He blended some ultramarine into the white highlights to achieve a whiter effect.

Seghers built up his white-and-red tulip in the bouquet at left by applying a red oval, painted in vermilion, around which he then applied the darker background colour (fig.

16b). This red shape is smaller than the finished tulip, in which the red underlayer was left partly visible in the finished paint surface. The thin red stripes of the tulip were painted with a red lake, mixed with a bit of vermilion

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and now and then some lead white. They were painted alternately wet-in-wet with the white stripes, which become a bit more grey-green towards the bottom.

De Heem, who also laid in his composition with circles and ovals in uniform colours, underpainted with vermilion – just as Seghers had done – the red-and-white Persian tulip at centre right in his bouquet (figs. 16c and 17). But in contrast to Seghers, this shape is actually larger than the finished flower. He then shaped the contours of the petals by partly covering the undermodelling with the dark paint of the background. At the bottom, too, the flower was thus made somewhat smaller than the example in the underpainting. He subsequently painted the tulip in white, light grey and deep red paint, consisting of a red lake; a

bit of ultramarine was added to some of the light-grey brushstrokes. The stamen and pistils were painted last.

To paint the white-and-red tulip at left in Ruysch’s bouquet, space was left in reserve in the background, leaving partly uncovered the painted sketch that indicates the tulip’s contour (fig. 16d). When painting the tulip, she left the dark ground uncovered in many places, so that it functions as a mid-tone in the flower. Ruysch began to apply the tulip’s shadows in grey paint, followed by the light, white petals, leaving space free for the bright red stripes that she applied before the white was completely dry. Thus the vermilion blended with a small amount of lead white.

Then she applied accents with the pigment Naples yellow.

Finally, she used a very transparent, red layer of glaze for the

16a-d Detail images of tulips from the four paintings examined, by Ambrosius Bosschaert, Daniel Seghers, Jan Davidsz de Heem and Rachel Ruysch.

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17a-f Various steps in the build-up of layers

of the tulip in the painting by Jan Davidsz de Heem (fig. 9)

a Underlayer of vermilion, to be seen in the MA-XRF map for mercury.

b The background is used to lend shape to the tulip, partly covering the underlayer. To be seen in the MA-XRF map for iron, related to the use of earth pigments.

c The tulip was worked up with lead white, to be seen in the MA-XRF map for lead.

d For the deep red colour, use was made of a red lacquer, to be seen in the MA-XRF map for calium.

e The leaves and stems were painted after the flower with a copper-containing pigment, to be seen in the MA-XRF map for copper.

f The same tulip seen in normal light.

shadows, thus applying the last details. The precision with which Ruysch mostly placed her brushstrokes next to, and not over, one another is striking. She thus worked more wetin-wet than the other painters discussed here.

In Conclusion

All four flower still lifes examined here were carefully prepared and executed. Bosschaert made use of an underdrawing on the ground layer to lay in his compositions, whereas Seghers and De Heem first painted round and oval areas of colour to determine the position

of the various flowers. Ruysch set to work in the most painterly manner, sketching her first idea with a broad brush. In spite of such careful preparations, all of these artists made changes to their compositions while painting.

Either planned flowers were not worked out, or unforeseen flowers were added over previous paint layers. The individual flowers were likewise painted in various ways, although these painters’ use of pigment is very similar. The result always looks exceptionally radiant and lively, and the individual flowers are generally rendered with great precision. Indeed, it seems possible to pluck such flowers right out of the painting.

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abraham van beyeren Flower Still Life with a Timepiece, c.1663-1665 Canvas, 69 x 80 cm.

Mauritshuis, The Hague

The flower still life by the Hague artist Abraham van Beyeren (1620-1690) is loosely painted in a few shades of red, white and green. This spontaneous manner of painting is exceptional in seventeenth-century flower painting, because most artists did their best to depict all the flowers as smoothly and precisely as possible. Omitting insects or butterflies altogether was also very uncommon.

The lack of detailing is compensated for by the lively brushstrokes and warm colours, which lend the work a distinctly painterly quality.

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dirck de bray Still Life of a Bouquet in the Making, 1674 Panel, 36.7 x 40.5 cm.

Mauritshuis, The Hague (acquired with the support of the VriendenLoterij, the Rembrandt Association and H.B. van der Ven, 2011)

A few cut flowers lie on the table around a vase that is only half full. This painting

by Dirck de Bray (1635-1694) seems to depict a moment frozen in time, a pause in the act of flower arrangement.

Remarkably, all of these flowers bloom in spring: anemones, tulips, white and yellow narcissi and columbine. These tangibly lifelike flowers are subtly illuminated and display the artist’s feeling for the softness of the petals.

A woolly caterpillar crawls in the foreground, and butterflies and dragonflies have alighted on the flowers.

A fly with lightning fast wings buzzes on the yellow narcissus at the top.

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