Maria van Oosterwijck
The two most important female representatives of seventeenth-century flower still life painting were Rachel Ruysch and Maria van Oosterwyck. The latter and oldest of the two came from a family of ministers. She never married and was active in Delft, and then in Amsterdam as of 1673. Van Oosterwyck was never a member of a guild. Yet she enjoyed great renown – for her art, naturally, but also because of her gender as a painter – as a result of which she received commissions from the highest circles at home and abroad. Even the French king, Louis XIV, was one of her clients.
This bouquet, which Van Oosterwyck probably painted around 1670-1675, consists of various flowers and plants rarely seen in paintings, such as thyme, cow parsley, larkspur, London pride and monkshood. Tulips are conspicuously absent. Van Oosterwyck often used colourful reeds to create a fanciful asymmetrical accent lending depth to the composition. At present, this is more conspicuous because in the course of time the rest of the foliage has discoloured causing the bouquet to lose much of its sense of depth.
We present today's work thanks to Mauritshuis in Hague.