Flowers in an Urn

Irises, tulips, peonies and carnations rise in a loose, exuberant cascade from a terracotta urn carved with putti, the blooms set against a pale greenish-ochre background and joined by butterflies and a bird’s nest with blue eggs resting on the marble ledge. Jan van Huysum, the most celebrated flower painter of the Dutch Golden Age’s last generation, made this piece about 1720-1722, in the lighter, more decorative manner of his later years; he was famous for working only from living flowers, so secretive that he refused visitors to his studio, and the arrangement’s improbable seasonal combinations — irises and peonies flowering together — are his signature artifice. The panel was purchased by the National Gallery of Art in 1977 with funds from the Adolph Caspar Miller Fund. The painting is held in the National Gallery of Art, Washington.