Flowers in an Urn

c. 1720/1722

Jan van Huysum

Artist, Dutch, 1682 - 1749

A tall arrangement of blue irises, cream-white carnations, violets, peonies, tulips, and other azure-blue, white, and scarlet-red flowers in a terracotta urn carved with child-like putti takes up most of the space of this vertical still life painting. The arrangement is warmly lit from the upper left and sits near a corner of a stone ledge veined in caramel brown and golden yellow. The ledge extends off the right edge of the painting. Most of the flowers face us but some face away or droop down. Leggy tulips in full bloom rise high in the bouquet. A cluster of white peonies veined lightly with pale pink are gathered near a crimson-edged white carnation and vivid blue forget-me-nots near the center, above the urn. The stems and blossoms of other flowers swirl and twist through the arrangement. A small brown and orange butterfly with black spots perches with wings slightly open on a scarlet-red poppy at the top center. Another butterfly sits with wings spread near the front corner of the ledge. Black circles surrounded by rings that blend from sapphire blue to butter yellow look like eyes at the tips of each of the four wings. A third butterfly with white wings is partly visible behind the petals of a ruby-red peony in the lower right. A small bird’s nest woven with twigs and green moss sits to our right of the urn, and is filled with four blue eggs. The background behind the arrangement is streaked with sable brown and mustard yellow. The signature of the artist is written in cursive on the face of the stone ledge near the corner, “Jan Van Huysum fecit.”

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Against a pale greenish-ocher background, the subtle colors and organic rhythms of Jan van Huysum’s exuberant flower arrangement in an urn create an elegant whole, without focusing unduly upon any individual blossom. The bouquet is in a terra-cotta vase decorated with playful cupids, and near it are three pale blue eggs in a bird’s nest, which teeters on the edge of the marble tabletop. Like Jan Davidsz de Heem, the famous still-life artist on whose work he must have drawn for inspiration, Van Huysum introduced improbable combinations of flowers in his paintings as well as a wide variety of insects to enliven his image. The lighter tonal background of this work, which enhances its delicate and decorative quality, is characteristic of the artist’s later style.

Van Huysum’s lasting fame rests on his technical virtuosity and his precise observations of flowers and fruit. It has never been determined how he achieved such high degrees of accuracy because he was an extremely secretive artist. Nevertheless, it seems that he painted most of his flowers directly from life or from models he had previously drawn from life. In a letter to a patron he complained that he could not finish a still life that was to include a yellow rose until that flower blossomed the following spring.

On View

West Building Ground Floor, Gallery G13

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on panel

  • Credit Line

    Adolph Caspar Miller Fund

  • Dimensions

    overall: 79.9 x 60 cm (31 7/16 x 23 5/8 in.)
    framed: 99.7 x 80.6 x 8.2 cm (39 1/4 x 31 3/4 x 3 1/4 in.)

  • Accession

    1977.7.1

More About this Artwork

This horizontal painting shows a group of eight light-skinned musicians and onlookers gathered closely around a rectangular, carpet-covered table. The front edge of the table runs parallel to the bottom edge of the painting, and seems close to us. Shown from about the waist up, the men and women’s vivid lapis-blue, coral-red, buttercup-yellow, lilac-purple, and moss-green garments fall in crisp folds. Bright reflections on the fabric suggest a satin-like material. Two women wear feathers in their hair and one man’s hat is plumed. One man, wearing crimson red and black, sits with his back to us to our left on the near side of the table. He holds the neck of a bass viol, about the size of a cello, with his left hand, and points to pages of an open music book with the bow in his right hand. The other people cluster on the far side of the table. A man to the left plays a violin; a woman at the center plays a guitar-sized bandora, and a woman to our right plays a lute. The musicians, along with a man who leans over the table from between the two women, look down at the music books. A young man behind the woman at the center holds up a glass of pale liquid with his right hand as he touches his left forefinger to his smiling lips. A man and woman stand close together in the background to our right, in the top right corner of the canvas.

Scholarly Series:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century

Scholarly Article:  Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century: Flowers in an Urn, c. 1720/1722

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

(Jacques Goudstikker, Amsterdam), by 1919 until at least 1920. Vas Diag, before 1924; (Leggatt Brothers, London); acquired 21 July 1924 by Lord Claud Hamilton;[1] by inheritance to his widow, Lady Claud Hamilton; (sale, Christie, Manson & Woods, London, 28 November 1975, no. 23); (Alexander Gallery, London); purchased 18 February 1977 by NGA.
[1] The provenance from Vas Diag to Lord Hamilton is given in a letter from Charles Leggatt to Arthur Wheelock, 31 December 1982, in NGA curatorial files. Records of the Leggatt Brothers that might have provided more information about Diag and the purchase from him were destroyed in World War II. “Lord Claud Hamilton” could be one of several people; one possibility is that he was Lord Claud Nigel Hamilton (1889–1975), whose widow (she died 1984) was born Violet Ruby Ashton, and was earlier Mrs. Keith W. Newall.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1919

  • Collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam, Pulchri Studio, The Hague, 1919, no. 13.

1920

  • Collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam, Kunstkring, Rotterdam, 1920, no. 24.

1976

  • Spring Exhibition, Alexander Gallery, London, 1976.

1997

  • Rembrandt and the Golden Age: Dutch Paintings from the National Gallery of Art, The Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk, 1997, unnumbered brochure, repro.

1998

  • The Age of Opulence: Arts of the Baroque, Oklahoma City Art Museum, 1998-1999, brochure, repro.

Bibliography

1919

  • Goudstikker, Jacques. Catalogue de la collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam. Exh. cat. Pulchri Studio, The Hague. Haarlem, 1919: no. 13.

1920

  • Goudstikker, Jacques. Catalogue de la collection Goudstikker d'Amsterdam. Exh. cat. Rotterdamsche Kunstkring. Rotterdam, 1920: no. 24.

1954

  • Grant, Maurice Harold. Jan van Huysum, 1682–1749. Leigh-on-Sea, 1954: no. 3.

1985

  • National Gallery of Art. European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. Washington, 1985: 208, repro.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, 1995: 144-145, color repro. 143.

1997

  • Chrysler Museum of Art. Rembrandt and the Golden Age: Dutch paintings from the National Gallery of Art. Exh. brochure. Chrysler Museum of Art, Norfolk. Washington, 1997: unnumbered repro.

1998

  • Oklahoma City Art Museum. The Age of Opulence: Arts of the Baroque. Exh. brochure. Oklahoma City Art Museum, Oklahoma City, 1998: unnumbered repro.

2006

  • Segal, Sam, Mariël Ellens, and Joris Dik. De verleiding van Flora: Jan van Huysum, 1682-1749. Exh. cat. Museum het Prinsenhof, Delft; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Zwolle, 2006: 173, repro.

2007

  • Segal, Sam. The Temptations of Flora: Jan van Huysum, 1682-1749. Translated by Beverly Jackson. Exh. cat. Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Zwolle, 2007: 173, repro.

Inscriptions

lower left on front of marble tabletop: Jan Van Huysum fecit

Wikidata ID

Q20177790

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