A Delft Vase with Flowers

The visual exuberance of blooms in this flower painting would be matched in real life by a sensory overload of scent, with peonies, orange blossom, roses and carnations perfuming the air. The delicately rendered bouquet that cascades from a Delft porcelain vase creates a convincing visual illusion known as trompe l’oeil (literally, ‘trick the eye’), with one drooping carnation head appearing to almost break out of the picture plane over the stone ledge. Butterflies flit amongst the flowers, tiny ants crawl between petals, a snail edges along the ledge and drops of dew glisten like glass spheres on the leaves. Overcleaning in the past has removed some of the original paint, so that what was once a bright and vibrant composition now appears rather more ghostly, with discoloured blue leaves and a pale, patchy backdrop. This painting and A Chinese Bowl with Fruit were probably intended as a pair, sharing the common ledge that the porcelain receptacles rest upon, along with similar proportions and scale. They may also share a common message, known as a vanitas: a visual reminder of the frailty of life amid its beauty. The snail about to consume the vulnerable blooms and the short lifespan of both the flowers and butterflies that are drawn to them, all hint at how beauty and life inevitably fade.  

The signature on the lower left edge of the plinth shows signs of abrasion and has been converted at some time from ‘f. M van Huysum’ to read 'Jan van Huysum', after the acclaimed seventeenth-century Dutch flower painter (1682-1749). However, the painting has recently been reattributed to his daughter, Francina Margaretha van Huysum (1707-89) and it appears to be her signature that has been erased here. She was the only woman to be admitted to her father’s studio and trusted with witnessing his technique.  She lived and worked in the same house in Amsterdam as her half-uncle, Michiel van Huysum (1703-77), also a flower painter.