Flowers in an Urn

Against a pale greenish-ocher background, the subtle colors and organic rhythms of Jan van Huysum’s exuberant flower arrangement in an urn create an elegant whole, without focusing unduly upon any individual blossom. The bouquet is in a terra-cotta vase decorated with playful cupids, and near it are three pale blue eggs in a bird’s nest, which teeters on the edge of the marble tabletop. Like Jan Davidsz de Heem, the famous still-life artist on whose work he must have drawn for inspiration, Van Huysum introduced improbable combinations of flowers in his paintings as well as a wide variety of insects to enliven his image. The lighter tonal background of this work, which enhances its delicate and decorative quality, is characteristic of the artist’s later style.

Van Huysum’s lasting fame rests on his technical virtuosity and his precise observations of flowers and fruit. It has never been determined how he achieved such high degrees of accuracy because he was an extremely secretive artist. Nevertheless, it seems that he painted most of his flowers directly from life or from models he had previously drawn from life. In a letter to a patron he complained that he could not finish a still life that was to include a yellow rose until that flower blossomed the following spring.