Masterpiece Story: Flower Still Life by Jan van Huysum

Historical Background

Jan van Huysum (1682–1749) was one of the most popular still-life painters in the Netherlands during the early 18th century. He was an internationally recognized artist who had works collected by Philippe II, Duke of Orléans and Regent of France; William VIII, Landgrave of Hesse-Kassel; and Sir Robert Walpole, Earl of Orford and Prime Minister of Great Britain.

Van Huysum was celebrated as a master still-life painter with his large and lavish arrangements of fruits and flowers. However, his earlier, smaller images hold an intimate charm that was lost in his later, larger pieces. Flower Still Life is an early masterpiece that delicately explores the beauty of flowers and butterflies.

General Composition

Jan van Huysum’s Flower Still Life is an oil on copper image. It measures 21 x 27 cm (8.26 x 10.63 in.) in a landscape orientation. The painting depicts four different flowers lying on a marble table while two different butterflies land and flutter around.

Unlike Van Huysum’s later flower images, which are sophisticated arrangements of countless flowers and insects, this early image is a naturally artless display of a few select pieces. They have the unaffected air of garden clippings casually lying on a kitchen counter. The image is beautiful through its simple composition, rich colors, and precise details.

Antique Rose

The central, large pink rose dominates the painting’s composition. It is an attractive flower with its fragile thin petals, deep crimson interior, and pale blushing exterior. In modern gardening, this rose is referred to as an antique rose because it predates the modern hybrid tea rose, which was first cross-bred in the mid-19th century.

Jan van Huysum frequently visited horticultural centers like Haarlem to observe, sketch, and paint rare and unusual flowers. Therefore, the viewer is possibly observing a piece of horticulture history with this pink flower. Perhaps it is now a lost antique rose variety?

Atop the mysterious antique rose are four clinging water droplets, while further down three droplets cling to one of the rose’s leaves. The largest and most apparent droplet is on the highest petal of the flower. The water reflects the rose’s pink shade with a white fleck of light.

Compositionally, the water droplets add body to the rose and create moments of pause. The viewer does not merely glance over the rose, but stops and observes the flower’s little intricacies.

Variegated Carnation

Below the antique rose, in the lower right corner of the composition, is a variegated carnation. Its petals are patterned with red and white stripes. Variegated flowers, less popular today, were widely favored in the 17th and early 18th centuries, especially in the area of the modern Netherlands. Tulips and the Tulip Mania of 1634-1637 epitomized the striped flower craze.

However, while Jan van Huysum may be commenting on the economic instability of flowers, it is more likely that he is using this unusual flower to act as a visual foil to the antique rose. The carnation has a bold, geometric pattern, while the rose has muted, irregular shading. Nevertheless, the carnation also acts as an echo to the rose, with both flowers displaying bold crimson petals. Therefore, Van Huysum plays visually with the rose and the carnation, highlighting their similarities and differences..

Morning Glory

To the left of the rose are two blue morning glories. Their delicately thin trumpet blooms contrast against the weighty, cabbage-like roses. Van Huysum displays the morning glories from two different angles. One is frontal and fully bloomed. The second one is in profile and in early bloom. He further adds a third morning glory below the rose in a bud-like, unbloomed view.

Their different viewpoints and progressive blooming stages are a testimony to Van Huysum’s artistic prowess to depict flowers as evolving subjects. They are not stationary, lifeless decorations, but growing, living subjects. The sad irony is that these flowers will die soon as their stems have been cut to arrange the composition.

Little Flowers

To the furthest left edge of the painting, some small red and white flowers are displayed.

An additional sprig of these little flowers is found above the right shoulder of the roses. Their variety is unknown, and therefore any historical or symbolic allusion is lost. However, they still add visually to the composition by echoing the red and white hues found in the roses and the carnation.

Painted Lady

On the far right of the still life is a large brown butterfly with bold red and white dots on its wings. It most closely resembles a species known as the Painted Lady from Western Europe and is still found in the modern Netherlands. The Painted Lady butterfly delicately perches on the smaller bud of the antique rose with its long furry legs. Its two antennas radiate from its head and give the little insect a sprightly personality.

With thousands of options, Van Huysum has intentionally selected this species for the composition because of its colorful wings. The red and white echo the colors of the roses, carnation, and little flowers, while the little splashes of blue echo the morning glories. The little Painted Lady is painted with the flowers’ colors.

Blue Butterfly

Fluttering above the roses in the upper central area of the composition is a delicate blue butterfly. It resembles a Common Blue butterfly, but it could be a sub-species of Short-tailed Blue or Mazarine Blue butterfly. Regardless, the blue butterfly reiterates the Painted Lady’s presence.

It is another butterfly that mirrors the flowers’ colors. In the case of the Common Blue, it specifically echoes the blue richness of the morning glories. Again, Van Huysum has intentionally selected this species for the composition because of its colorful wings and colorful mirroring.

Marble Table

Supporting the entire scene is a thick, substantial brown marble table. It is the type of furniture that the haute bourgeoisie or aristocracy would have owned in the late 17th and early 18th centuries. As during Van Huysum’s era, marble is still regarded today as a luxury stone that adorns fine furniture and architectural interiors. It was and still is a stone for the affluent and discerning client.

Marble harkens back to classical references of ancient Greece and Rome; however, this brown-mottled marble is different. It is not the white Parian marble praised by the ancients. This marble is very similar visually to a French Baroque favorite called Sarrancolin marble which was used extensively in many royal residences. It was even used extensively in the famous Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles! What a royal seal of approval! Therefore, by using a marble visually similar to Sarrancolin, Van Huysum is referencing the highest level of luxurious, noble refinement. He is significantly implying an elevated refinement to the arrangement.

Signature Style

Like many great artists, Jan van Huysum has a signature style. Anyone with a basic education in art can recognize a painting created by or heavily influenced by Leonardo da Vinci, Caravaggio, Claude Monet, or Pablo Picasso. They just have that “look” that instantly says which famous artist created them. Jan van Huysum is no different. Once a viewer has experienced several of his works, they begin to recognize the stylistic aura of his signature style. And like a masterful artist, there is a progression of the signature style with an earlier period and a later period.

Earlier Period

Flower Still Life reflects Van Huysum’s earlier period despite written records not confirming its creation date. However, when compared visually to known dated works, the similarities become obvious. The Louvre currently displays an early work of Jan van Huysum dated between 1700 and 1750.

Corbeille de fleurs avec deux papillons is an oil on wood measuring 41 x 53 cm (16.14 x 20.86 in.). It has a more complex composition than Flower Still Life, but many of the same motifs are used. The same antique pink rose and large water droplets are found in the image. Also, the viewer can observe the same species of morning glory in the bottom right, and the same Painted Lady butterfly in the central upper area. Clearly, Van Huysum reused what he knew worked visually.

Later Period

The Louvre also displays a piece reflecting Van Huysum’s later signature style that is dated to 1730. Grand Vase orné de putti is an oil painting on canvas measuring 1.08 x 1.38 m (42.5 x 54.3 in.). It is definitely the most compositionally complex of the three images discussed so far with its overabundance of various flowers. It also has a superabundance of details to the point of visual fussiness.

However, it has a significantly lighter background compared to the darker shade of Flower Still Life. The antique pink roses and blue morning glories remain, but the butterflies are gone. The variegated carnation is replaced by variegated tulips, but interestingly in the same red-and-white stripes.

Margareta Haverman

It can be further argued that Flower Still Life is an early, influential masterpiece by Jan van Huysum due to the copycat nature of his student, Margareta Haverman (1693–1765). The woman artist studied under Van Huysum for several years in the first decade of the 18th century. When she created her masterpiece, Vase of Flowers (1716), now displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, she clearly copied many of Van Huysum’s early motifs.

The same pink rose with water droplets and the same Painted Lady butterfly are prominently seen in the composition. In fact, it is said that Margareta Haverman so much copied Van Huysum in mastery and skill that Van Huysum eventually expelled her from his studio due to jealousy and fear of the emerging artist rivalry.

Van Huysum then became secretive about his painting techniques and forbade visitors to his studio. He even barred his own artist-father Justus van Huysum the Elder (1659–1716) and his artist-brothers Justus the Younger (1685–1707), Jacob (1688–1740), and Michiel (1703–1777) from entering it. The fact that Margareta Haverman was later accepted as a member to the French Royal Academy in Paris, France does give credence to Van Huysum’s beliefs and actions.

Arnold Houbraken

Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719), a famous Dutch writer and biographer of Jan van Huysum’s era, was the Giorgio Vasari of his time. He wrote anecdotes of leading artists, and mixed fact and gossip into interesting readings. Upon viewing several of Jan van Huysum’s paintings, Arnold Houbraken stated that Van Huysum was “the phoenix of flower-painters.” A phoenix is a mythical immortal bird that regenerates from the ashes of its predecessor. Houbraken stated that Van Huysum had revived the genre of flower painting that was in decline after the infamous Rampjaar of 1672, which is noted as the informal ending of the Dutch Golden Age.

“The phoenix of flower-painters” is an appropriate title because Jan van Huysum is a rare, masterful Dutch still-life painter of the early 18th century. He really infused new life into the lagging genre and brought a renaissance that grew and developed through the 18th and 19th centuries. Flower Still Life will probably never be as famous as Vincent van Gogh’s Sunflowers or Paul Cézanne’s Basket of Apples, but it definitely deserves wider recognition for its exemplary qualities.

It is a masterpiece of the still life genre, and even after 300 years, it can still draw sighs due to its radiant beauty and delicate nonchalance. It is no wonder that the artist proudly signed it, “Jan Van Huijsum fecit,” meaning “Jan van Huysum made it.”