Lot 1560 Dα

Utrecht, an important episcopal see and city of the union of the Northern Provinces, was one of the leading centres of art in the Netherlands, especially of flower painting in the 17th century. The city owed this status to a number of outstanding artists who were active there at the beginning of the century: Ambroisus Bosschaert, who shaped the genre and settled in Utrecht in 1616; Balthasar van der Ast, his brother-in-law, who followed him a short time later, and last but not least Roelant Savery, who moved to the city in 1619 after his prestigious appointment at the imperial court in Prague. It was in this fertile artistic environment that this magnificent still life, dated between 1617 and 1619, was created. Laurens Bol included the work, painted on copper, for its qualities in his seminal monograph on the Bosschaert dynasty (Bol, op. cit., p. 98).

If one lets one's gaze wander up from the rummer in which the bouquet is placed, one sees a multitude of flowers in every conceivable shape, colour and pattern: roses in white, red and pink; daffodils, yellow calendula and white caraway flowers; a light carnation, an anemone, a fiery red oriental lily; at the top hyacinths, forget-me-nots, Turk's-collar lilies and bellflowers. The different textures of the flowers are precisely observed and rendered. However, the tall, towering structure of the bouquet, which measures many times the height of the rummer, and the simultaneous juxtaposition of flowers from different seasons make the still life an idealised representation of nature. The insects on the flowers and the table, as well as the withered blossoms and leaves, remind us of the transience of beauty.