National Gallery of Art :: The Collection :: Bouquet of Flowers in a Glass Vase
  • Overview
  • Inscription
  • Provenance
  • Exhibition History
  • Bibliography

Overview

Ambrosius Bosschaert, a pioneer in the history of Dutch still-life painting, infused his flower bouquets with a sense of joy. He had an unerring compositional awareness, and delighted in combining a range of flowers with different colors and shapes to create a pleasing and uplifting visual experience. As in this exquisite work, Bosschaert generally arranged his blossoms symmetrically. Here, two spectacular blossoms, a yellow iris and a red-and-white striped tulip, surmount a bouquet that also contains a wide variety of species, among them roses, a blue-and-white columbine, fritillaria, grape hyacinth, lily of the valley, and a sprig of rosemary. A dragonfly alighting on the iris and a butterfly on the cyclamen blossom that rests on the wooden table further enliven his composition.

Bosschaert, who was born in Antwerp, moved to Middelburg after 1587 for religious reasons. Middelburg, a prosperous trading center and the capital of Zeeland, was renowned for its botanical gardens, the most important of which was established in the 1590s by the great botanist Matthias Lobelius. After Lobelius left for England in 1602, his herb garden was transformed into a flower garden, and almost certainly filled with exotic species imported from the Balkan peninsula, the Near and Far East, and the New World. Collectors at this time particularly admired bulbous plants such as the iris, the narcissus, the scarlet lily, the fritillaria, and, above all, the tulip--species whose bright colors and dramatic forms frequently accent early seventeenth-century flower paintings.

Bosschaert, who may have trained with his father, probably began his career depicting rare and exotic flowers in such gardens, perhaps even for the botanist Carolus Clusius. Bosschaert certainly used such drawings to compose his paintings, which often include identical flowers, sometimes depicted in reverse.

Bosschaert's career in Middelburg was extremely successful, both as a painter and as an art dealer. He was also an effective teacher, and was able to ensure that his distinctive style of painting was effectively perpetuated by his talented students, among them his son-in-law Balthasar van der Ast, and his sons Ambrosius the Younger, Johannes, and Abraham. In 1614, Bosschaert left Middelburg and moved to Amsterdam. He remained there only a short while before moving first to Bergen op Zoom (1615), then to Utrecht (1615-1619), and eventually to Breda (1619-1621), where he executed this painting.

Bosschaert's style of flower painting became more naturalistic over time, as he developed techniques for painting petals with soft, velvety textures. He also introduced subtle tonal gradations in the background to enhance the sense of light flooding the image. Although he began to arrange his flowers more informally, often overlapping individual blossoms, he continued to compose symmetrical bouquets surmounted by one or two large flowers, including those that bloom at various times of the year. These bouquets of blossoms that no gardener could have gathered reflected a fundamental theological concept held by both Catholics and Protestants. They believed that the blessings of God's creation were to be found in the extraordinary richness and beauty of the natural world. Thus, while accuracy was important in recording God's individual creations--flowers, insects, and shells--an imaginative melding of beautiful flowers from different seasons of the year celebrated the greatness of his munificence.

Bouquet of Flowers in a Glass Vase occupies a special place in Bosschaert's oeuvre, for its inscription, filling an illusionistic plaque attached to the table's front, offers one of the most moving testaments to the artist's enormous reputation at the time of his death: "C'est l'Angelicq main du gra[n]d Peindre de Flore AMBROSE, renommé jusqu'au Riuage Mort" (It is the angelic hand of the great painter of flowers, Ambrosius, renowned even to the banks of death).

(Text by Arthur K. Wheelock Jr., published in the National Gallery of Art exhibition catalogue, Art for the Nation, 2000)

Inscription

lower right in monogram: .AB.1621; across bottom in blue field: C'est L'Angelicq main du grad Peindre de Flore / AMBROISE, renommé jusqu'au Rivage Mort. (This is the angelic hand of Flora's famous painter AMBROSIUS, renowned even beyond the banks of death.)

Marks and Labels

null

Provenance

Probably painted 1621 for Frederick van Schurman (or Schuermans) [1564-1623], The Hague.[1] (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 7 April 1922, no. 54); private collection, England; (John Mitchell & Sons, London); private collection, England; (Edward Speelman, Ltd., London); purchased 27 June 1996 by NGA.

[1] This painting is probably the one that Bosschaert took with him in 1621, when he traveled from Breda to The Hague to deliver a blompot (flower still-life painting) to Frederick van Schurman (or Schuermans), the bottelier of Prince Maurits. For this work Bosschaert received the extraordinary sum of 1,000 guilders. Maria Bosschaert, Ambrosius’ daughter, wrote the following: “Mijn vader Ambrosius Bosschaert is gesturven in Schravenhage in ‘t jaer als den 12 jarigen Trebes uut was, doch was woonachtig binnen Breda maer near den Hage getrocken om een blompot te leveren die hij hadde gemaeckt voor de bottelier van Sijn Hoochheyt daervoor hij dusent gulden hadde bedongen ende is aldaer sieck geworden ten huyse van joncker Schuermans, vader van Anna Maria Schuermans ende aldaer gesturven ende in Schravenhage begraven, tot droefheyt van veel liefhebbers.” See Abraham Bredius, “De bloemschilders Bosschaert,” Oud-Holland 31 (1913):138. Frederick van Schurman had been ennobled by the Holy Roman Emperor, and the phrase Maria Bosschaert used to refer to Van Schurman, a joncker (from the German Junker), is an honorary title that corresponds to the old inscription “Jonckheere …” on the verso of the painting.

Exhibition History

1976
The Inspiration of Nature, John Mitchell and Son, London, 1976, p. 24.
1998
A Collector's Cabinet, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1998, no. 7, fig. 13.
1998
Copper as Canvas: Two Centuries of Masterpiece Paintings on Copper, 1525-1775, Phoenix Art Museum; Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City; Royal Cabinet of Paintings Mauritshuis, The Hague, 1998-1999, not in catalogue (shown only in The Hague).
1999
From Botany to Bouquets: Flowers in Northern Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1999, no. 11, fig. 32.
2000
Art for the Nation: Collecting for a New Century, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 2000-2001, unnumbered catalogue, repro.

Bibliography

1973
Mitchell, Peter. European Flower Painters. London, 1973: 59, repro.
1984
Segal, Sam. Masters of Middelburg. Exh. cat. Kunsthandel K. & V. Waterman, Amsterdam, 1984: 65, repro.
2004
Hand, John Oliver. National Gallery of Art: Master Paintings from the Collection. Washington and New York, 2004: 214-215, no. 172, color repro

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