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Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Ambrosius Bosschaert I

Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shell and Insects

ca. 1609
Oil on Copper.
68.6 x 50.8 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
56
(
1958.4
)
ROOM 21
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  

This floral still life, which entered the Collection in 1957, features the most characteristic traits of Ambrosius Bosschaert’s style. Its provenance can be traced back to the 18th century when it belonged to Jan Nicolaas van Eys. For much of the 19th century and until the mid-20th century the panel was in the UK in the possession of three families until 1953 when it appeared on the art market in an exhibition on Dutch and Flemish art organised by the Eugene Slatter gallery in London.

Ambrosius Bosschaert founded a dynasty of artists who executed floral still lifes, a genre that became fully independent in the 17th century and which was highly appreciated in its time. Much of his career was spent in the important city of Middelburg where the models that he developed in his compositions continued to be used until well into the 17th century. Bosschaert’s compositions were known and appreciated by contemporary clients who paid high prices for them although he never achieved the level of prestige of Jan Brueghel, the other great master in this genre.

The principal motif of the vase of flowers is set against a plain, simple background painted in shades of grey that reveals the copper panel beneath the paint layer in some areas. Bosschaert located the vase on a simple ledge and used a uniform lighting that places equal emphasis on the different types of flowers in the bouquet. The precision and detail with which each flower, stalk and leaf is painted, regardless of whether it occupies a prominent or a secondary position, is one of Bosschaert’s most typical traits. The bouquet is arranged symmetrically using a vertical structure with striking, striped tulips in the centre, a flower that Bosschaert frequently depicted. White, red and pinkish roses lean out over the edge of the vase, which also has some beautiful white lilies on the left in the centre as well as pinks, irises and columbines. The vase is a Chinese porcelain one with a gilt-metal mount, a precious object of high quality that competes with the flowers within it.

Bosschaert did not generally paint his flowers from life, as he tended to depict arrangements containing flowers in bloom at different seasons. Many of his bouquets are constructed from preliminary sketches and drawings produced in his studio. When selecting which flowers to depict Bosschaert generally chose costly, luxurious blooms, sometimes mixed with wild ones. The artist also generally included other elements from the natural world such as the shell, here arranged on the ledge on the left, insects, including a butterfly on the right, and other small creatures such as the caterpillar moving along one of the stalks in the foreground and another one on one of the iris leaves.

This copper panel is unusual in that it has the date of its manufacture, 1607, on the reverse, as well as the name of the craftsmen, Peeter Stas, who made it. The present painting has been compared with two other compositions by the artist, one in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, and the other in the Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna.

Mar Borobia

17th Century17th Century - Dutch paintingPaintingOilCopper
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Vase with Chrysantemums. Crisantemos en un florero, s. f.
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The present tour of the Thyssen-Bornemisza Collection offers a survey of Western art from the end of the Middle Ages to the present with the aim of analysing the numerous functions of floral symbols .

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Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shell and Insects. Vaso chino con flores, conchas e insectos, c.1609
Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shell and Insects
Ambrosius Bosschaert I

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shell and Insects. Vaso chino con flores, conchas e insectos, c.1609
Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shell and Insects
Ambrosius Bosschaert I

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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