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Open 10:00–5:00

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  • Visit

    • Plan Your Visit
    • Accessibility
    • Visiting with Kids
    • Food and Drink
    • Tours and Guides
    • Explore the Campus

    Open today 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
    Admission is always free

    6th and Constitution Ave NW 
    Washington, DC 20565

    Sculpture Garden Extended Hours

    Open late until 8:00 p.m. on select nights

    Through September 5

  • Exhibitions & Events

    • Exhibitions
    • Calendar
    • Kid-Friendly Events

    America’s 250th

    Celebrating American art and artists

  • Art & Artists

    • Artworks
    • Artists
    • Stories
    • Fun and Games
    • Educational Resources
    • Research

    Open Call

    Artists Reimagining the Collection

    Meet the 50 makers selected from more than 1,600 submissions

Utility

  • Support
  • Shop
  • Become a Member

  • Visit

    • Plan Your Visit
    • Accessibility
    • Visiting with Kids
    • Food and Drink
    • Tours and Guides
    • Explore the Campus

    Open today 10:00 a.m.–5:00 p.m.
    Admission is always free

    6th and Constitution Ave NW 
    Washington, DC 20565

    Sculpture Garden Extended Hours

    Open late until 8:00 p.m. on select nights

    Through September 5

  • Exhibitions & Events

    • Exhibitions
    • Calendar
    • Kid-Friendly Events

    America’s 250th

    Celebrating American art and artists

  • Art & Artists

    • Artworks
    • Artists
    • Stories
    • Fun and Games
    • Educational Resources
    • Research

    Open Call

    Artists Reimagining the Collection

    Meet the 50 makers selected from more than 1,600 submissions

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  • Support
  • Shop
  • Become a Member

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  • See extended hours

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    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.”
    Jan van Huysum, Flowers in an Urn, c. 1720/1722, oil on panel, Adolph Caspar Miller Fund, 1977.7.1

    Flowers in an Urn

    Flowers in an Urn

    Jan van Huysum · c. 1720/1722 · oil on panel ·  Accession ID  1977.7.1

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