Flowers in a Vase
c. 1750
Medium
Oil on panel
Dimensions
92.8 × 90.9 cm (36 1/2 × 35 3/4 in.); Framed: 99.7 × 98.5 × 3.4 cm (39 1/4 × 38 3/4 × 1 3/8 in.)
Classification
painting
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
8610
Art Historical Context
This elegant still-life painting, created by an anonymous Dutch artist around 1750, reflects the Netherlands’ long-standing fascination with floral subjects. By the mid-eighteenth century, the Dutch Republic’s prosperous merchant class continued to commission such works, which celebrated both the beauty of cultivated blooms and the nation’s global trade networks that brought exotic flowers to European markets. Though the height of the Dutch Golden Age had passed, flower paintings remained popular for their ability to capture fleeting natural splendor on a permanent surface. Executed in oil on...