Costly blooms like roses and tulips are tumbled together with humbler flowers like morning glory and marigolds, forming an exuberant, almost wild, bouquet. Tiny insects burrow through the petals while a cabbage white butterfly balances precariously on top.
The painting isn’t as spontaneous as it appears. These flowers are never in bloom at the same time; Paulus Theodorus van Brussel painted each from sketches made when they were. Most of all, he achieved the unkempt, haphazard look of the bouquet through careful design. The blue iris takes centre stage, the single upright flower. It’s supported by a strong diagonal of flowers in paler colours, from the pink rose at the bottom on the left up to the striped tulips on the right at the top. This allows leaves, stems and smaller blooms to straggle seemingly at will, helping to create an artful disorder.
This painting is included in a list of works with incomplete provenance from 1933–1945; for more information see Whereabouts of paintings 1933–1945.
Text extracted from the ‘Provenance’ section of the catalogue entry in Neil MacLaren, revised and expanded by Christopher Brown, ‘National Gallery Catalogues: The Dutch School: 1600–1900’, London 1991; for further information, see the full catalogue entry.
C. Baker and T. Henry, The National Gallery: Complete Illustrated Catalogue, London 2001
If you know more about this painting or have spotted an error, please contact us. Please note that exhibition histories are listed from 2009 onwards. Bibliographies may not be complete; more comprehensive information is available in the National Gallery Library.
