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Flowers in a Glass Vase

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Flowers in a glass vase on a partly draped stone ledge
ArtistNicolaes van Verendael Edit this on Wikidata
Year1660s
Mediumoil paint, canvas
Dimensions49.5 cm (19.5 in) × 39.5 cm (15.6 in)
LocationSuermondt-Ludwig-Museum
CollectionSuermondt-Ludwig-Museum Edit this on Wikidata
Accession No.GK 535 Edit this on Wikidata
IdentifiersRKDimages ID: 198239

Flowers in a glass vase on a partly draped stone ledge is a circa 1667 floral painting by Nicolaes van Verendael in the collection of the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum.[1]

Early history and creation

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Garland painting in the Prado

Nicolaes van Verendael was a respected flower painter in Antwerp who worked with Jan Davidsz. de Heem, among others. The early provenance of this painting is unknown but it can be dated based on other works by Van Verendael, such as his garland painting in the Prado which was long attributed to Jan Brueghel the Elder, who began floral painting in Antwerp a half-century beforehand.

Description and interpretation

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This painting dates to the period in Antwerp when hothouses became popular among the nobility and patrons ordered paintings to record their personal hothouse triumphs. Not all of the blooms would have bloomed at the same time, and the painting was meant more for decoration than for botanical accuracy. The work shows the following flower species: Rosa alba, Tropaeolum majus, Hepatica nobilis, rosemary, Tulipa, Delphinium, Aquilegia, Punica granatum, Rosa × centifolia.[2]

Later history and influence

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This painting was stored for safe-keeping during WWII in the Albrechtsburg in Meissen, from whence it was found and taken by marauding Soviet troops in 1945. Somehow it ended up in the possession of a German citizen who later migrated to Canada and it appeared on the art market in the 1970s, whereupon it was returned to the museum after 70 years.[3]

References

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  1. ^ "Flowers in a glass vase on a partly draped stone ledge". Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum.
  2. ^ Painting record in the RKD
  3. ^ After 70 years in exile Nicolaes van Verendael’s Flower Still Life returns to the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum in Aachen, article 4 March 2015 on codart