Balthasar van der Ast, 'Flowers in a Vase with Shells and Insects', probably about 1619.
London, The National Gallery.

Recent Acquisition

'Flowers in a Vase with Shells and Insects'

about 1630

Balthasar van der Ast
(about 1593 - 1656)

NG6593

The National Gallery has recently acquired an outstanding painting by the still life painter Balthasar van der Ast which has been on loan to the Gallery since 1995.

Alongside 'Flowers in a Vase' by his brother-in-law Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder it is possible for the National Gallery to show the beginnings of still life painting in the Netherlands.

Balthasar van der Ast was a native of Middelburg in Zeeland and trained there in Bosschaert's studio. He continued Bosschaert's style of precise description of fruit and flowers arranged in compositions carefully balanced in form and colour.

During his long career his compositions gradually became larger and more complex, often including rare and exotic fruits, flowers, shells and insects. He is one of the founders of still life painting in The Netherlands and was immensely influential on the development of flower and fruit painting in the cities where he worked.

This particular still life was probably painted shortly before van der Ast moved from Utrecht to Delft at the beginning of the 1630s. It shows a bouquet of relatively common flowers, including tulips, wallflowers, a rose and a carnation in a small ceramic vase standing on a ledge. Also on the ledge are three shells, enthusiastically collected in The Netherlands in the 17th century, a few fallen petals and a grasshopper.

The Middelburg painters pioneered a new type of simple, carefully composed still life, valued by contemporaries both for its descriptive realism and its decorative qualities.

Oil on oak 47 x 36.8 cm

Back to Recent Acquisitions 2003