Support The plain-weave canvas has been wax-resin lined. All tacking edges have been preserved, though slightly trimmed at the top. Cusping is visible on all sides.
Preparatory layers The single, light brown ground extends over the tacking edges. It consists of coarse white, some bright red, a few small brown and orange pigment particles with a small addition of fine black pigment particles.
Underdrawing No underdrawing could be detected with the naked eye or infrared photography.
Paint layers The paint extends over the tacking edges. The background was executed first, with reserves for the flowers. These were underpainted in a flat tone, approximating the colours that were to be finally achieved, and the contours were adjusted in some places with black. The flowers were then worked up from dark to light, continuing over the background in several places. In this stage the paint was applied wet in wet, resulting in very subtle transitions in colour. Glacis paints were used in a final stage, sometimes extending over the background. The smooth paint was applied very thinly, leaving no visible brushstrokes. Slight impasto can only be discerned in the highlights of the metal chain and watch on the table.
Zeph Benders, Ige Verslype, 2022

Fair. White particles are visible throughout the dark paint of the background, probably due to the formation of lead soaps. The gentians at top right and bottom left are greyish and appear to have lost their original blue colour due to pigment degradation. The two yellow roses in the centre lack detail and look rather flat, and have presumably also lost their initial colour. The glacis paints have faded, and can barely be distinguished with the naked eye but fluoresce clearly under UV light.

…; ? sale, Christina Maria Drekman (†), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 14 April 1857, no. 74, as signed ‘AVP’ (‘Een bouquet Bloemen geplaatst in eene kristallen vaas, staande op een marmeren plint. h. 64, br. 46 d [64 x 46 cm] D.’), fl. 27, to Duchatel;¹¹Copy RMA.…; sale, Maurits Cornelis van Hall (1768-1858, Amsterdam), Amsterdam (C.F. Roos et al.), 27 April 1858, no. 309*, as R. Ruijsch (‘Een glazen Flesch, in welke geplaatst zijn eene menigte zeer fraaije Bloemen; dun en delicaat gepenseeld’), fl. 65, to Nicolaas Pieneman, for the museum; on loan to the Rijksmuseum Muiderslot, Muiden, since 1998

Object number: SK-A-355

This still life is probably the work that was in the 1857 Drekman sale, where the monogram was read as ‘AVP’.⁶⁶See Provenance. At the Van Hall auction a year later it was attributed to Rachel Ruysch, one of the most popular flower painters of the Golden Age.⁷⁷See Provenance. That the monogram was recognized as Abraham van Beyeren’s some decades later is in keeping with his fortuna critica around that time.⁸⁸The new attribution was first published in J.W. Kaiser, Beschrijving der schilderijen van het Rijksmuseum te Amsterdam, met historische aanteekeningen en facsimilés der naamteekens, coll. cat. Amsterdam 1880, p. 47. His name had sunk into oblivion in the eighteenth century, but he was ranked among the foremost still-life artists by the end of the following one.

The admiration for Van Beyeren’s work continued to grow in the twentieth century. His painted bouquets were considered among the most beautiful of the Golden Age.⁹⁹A.P.A. Vorenkamp, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Hollandsch stilleven in de zeventiende eeuw, diss. Leiden University 1933, p. 128. Warner, one of the first to write about the genre, was mesmerized by the artist’s Flower Still Life in the Mauritshuis: ‘When looking at a picture of this quality it conveys a sense of reality which is uncanny’.¹⁰¹⁰R. Warner, Dutch and Flemish Flower and Fruit Painters of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries: Comprising 280 Illustrations, Representing 104 Masters, London 1928, p. 23. In his opinion the Rijksmuseum’s very similar canvas ‘just misses the extraordinary quality of the other […] but the freedom of brush-work is more easily seen’.¹¹¹¹R. Warner, Dutch and Flemish Flower and Fruit Painters of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries: Comprising 280 Illustrations, Representing 104 Masters, London 1928, p. 23. Van Beyeren’s bouquets were admired for their ‘very soft touch’ by Bergström in 1956, and in 1994 Segal still believed them to show ‘great artistry’.¹²¹²I. Bergström, Dutch Still-Life Painting in the Seventeenth Century, London 1956, pp. 244-45; S. Segal and M. Roding, De tulp en de kunst: Verhaal van een symbool, exh. cat. Amsterdam (De Nieuwe Kerk) 1994, p. 105. More recently, according to Taylor, however, the artist failed to create a convincing illusion of space, the compositions were incoherent and his brushwork sloppy.¹³¹³P. Taylor, Dutch Flower Painting, 1600-1720, New Haven/London 1995, pp. 100, 171-72. It is hard, though, to judge the original appearance of the present painting, for it has suffered a striking loss of colour.¹⁴¹⁴See Technical notes. The blues, in particular, have become so dull that some of the flowers can no longer be made out; in the foreground, the morning glories can still be identified, but what appear to be gentians on the lower left and upper right have become almost unrecognizable.

Van Beyeren painted only a few of such flower pieces. They are thought to be from the first half of the 1660s, but apart from the fact that they were obviously inspired by De Heem’s output from a decade earlier we have no further clue as to their dating.¹⁵¹⁵Vorenkamp dates them just before 1660; A.P.A. Vorenkamp, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Hollandsch stilleven in de zeventiende eeuw, diss. Leiden University 1933, p. 128. A still life with a rummer and a rose by or after Van Beyeren was raffled at Jan de Bondt’s lottery in Wijk bij Duurstede in 1649, but it is unlikely that the artist depicted entire bouquets at such an early stage.¹⁶¹⁶V. de Stuers, ‘De lotery van Jan de Bondt, 1649’, in F.D.O. Obreen, Archief voor Nederlandsche kunstgeschiedenis: Verzameling van meerendeels onuitgegeven berichten en mededeelingen betreffende Nederlandsche schilders, plaatsnijders, beeldhouwers, bouwmeesters, juweliers, goud- en zilverdrijvers (enz.), II, Rotterdam 1879-80, pp. 71-93, esp. p. 84. Van Beyeren’s choice of flowers was not based on their popularity in any specific period. The flamed red and white tulips, the pink and white roses and the reddish opium poppy were fashionable throughout the century.¹⁷¹⁷S. Segal, Flowers and Nature: Netherlandish Flower Painting of Four Centuries, exh. cat. Osaka (Nabio Museum of Art)/Tokyo (Station Gallery)/Sydney (Art Gallery of New South Wales) 1990, pp. 41-48. He picked them specifically, it seems, for their colour combination. Among the characteristic aspects of Van Beyeren’s paintings is the fact that his flowers are already past full bloom. In combination with the pocket watch, they perhaps refer to the passing of time and the transience of life.¹⁸¹⁸See also Van Leeuwen in E. de Jongh et al., Still-Life in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Auckland (Auckland City Art Gallery) 1982, pp. 159-61; P. Taylor, Dutch Flower Painting, 1600-1720, New Haven/London 1995, pp. 49-51.

Erlend de Groot, 2022

See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements

R. Warner, Dutch and Flemish Flower and Fruit Painters of the XVIIth and XVIIIth Centuries: Comprising 280 Illustrations, Representing 104 Masters, London 1928, p. 23; A.P.A. Vorenkamp, Bijdrage tot de geschiedenis van het Hollandsch stilleven in de zeventiende eeuw, diss. Leiden University 1933, p. 118; Van Leeuwen in E. de Jongh et al., Still-Life in the Age of Rembrandt, exh. cat. Auckland (Auckland City Art Gallery) 1982, pp. 158-61, no. 29; S. Segal and M. Roding, De tulp en de kunst: Verhaal van een symbool, exh. cat. Amsterdam (De Nieuwe Kerk) 1994, pp. 105, 110; E. Gemar-Koeltzsch, Holländische Stillebenmaler im 17. Jahrhundert, II, Lingen 1995, pp. 94-95, no. 28/10; P. Taylor, Dutch Flower Painting, 1600-1720, New Haven/London 1995, pp. 49-51, 100, 171-72

1870, p. 137, no. 291 (as Rachel Ruysch); 1880, p. 47, no. 23; 1887, p. 12, no. 85; 1903, p. 49, no. 506; 1960, p. 40, no. 506; 1976, p. 115, no. A 355

Erlend de Groot, 2022, 'Abraham van Beijeren, Still Life with Flowers, c. 1660 - 1690', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: https://data.rijksmuseum.nl/200108224