Tulips, a Rose, Lily of the Valley, and other Flowers in a glass Vase with a Cabbage White Butterfly and other Insects on a stone Ledge

The identification of the author of the present painting is still something of a mystery. It has been presumed to have been painted by Robert Jansz. Splinter (1594-1655), who was a pupil of the highly influential Dutch Mannerist painter, Abraham Bloemaert. Little is known about this artist, although a document of 1639 records that 'Robbert [sic.] Splinter, who never did travel to Italy, was to witness a notarial document for Bloemaert almost thirty years after he had entered his workshop as an apprentice'. However, Marcel G. Roethlisberger in his 1993 monograph on Bloemaert states that no work by Splinter (or his son Johan, who was also an artist) is known (M. Roethlisberger, Bloemaert and his sons, I, 1993, p. 648).

Fred G. Meijer of the Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague, believes the present painting is more likely to be by Anna Splinter, wife of the artist Pieter Quast. They are recorded as marrying in The Hague in 1632 and by the end of 1643 they had moved to Amsterdam. In 1649, two years after Pieter Quast's death, she married another painter, Jacob van Spreeuwen. A 1670 inventory at The Hague lists a painting by 'Juffrou' ('Miss' or 'Mrs') Quast; Mr. Meijer believes that a floral still life listed in a 1648 inventory as by Splinter was probably also by her.