Why a still life by Jan van Huysum — ‘the greatest of all’ — once cost five times as much as a painting by Rembrandt

When the Swedish art historian Ingvar Bergström turned to the subject of flower painting in his magnum opus, Dutch Still-Life Painting in the Seventeenth Century, first published in 1956, there was one name he ranked above all others: Jan van Huysum. ‘The greatest of all,’ he called him.

Bergström wasn’t the first to put the artist on this pedestal. During Van Huysum’s lifetime, thanks to his exuberant arrangements and technical virtuosity, his pictures were sought after by the Elector of Saxony, the prime minister of Britain, the dukes of Orleans and Mecklenburg and the kings of Poland and Prussia.

The wealthiest collectors paid as much as 1,000 guilders for his work — five times the price of a painting by Rembrandt. Shortly after his death in 1749, at the age of 66, one even changed hands for almost quadruple that — an unprecedented sum.

On 1 July 2025, as part of Classic Week, Christie’s is offering an exquisite pair of Van Huysum’s flower paintings, which are the artist’s last known works and mark the apogee of his brilliant career.

Van Huysum was born in Amsterdam in 1682, when the 17th-century upsurge in Dutch art was reaching its peak. He was the third generation of a family of painters, yet his own work is more indebted to Jan Davidsz. de Heem, a still-life painter considered the father of pronkstilleven — or ‘show-off still lifes’ — who died in 1684.

Like de Heem, Van Huysum had sharp powers of observation and mastered the accurate rendering of botanical specimens. His fruits are painted with waxy blooms and juicy flesh. Flowers are rendered in subtle, variegated hues, built up with thin glazes of oils. Minute water droplets absorb and reflect the sun with a glistening sheen, and a handful of tiny ants crawling across the scene reward closer observation.

Van Huysum was more radical than de Heem, however, in the way he treated light and space. Over time, the palette of his backgrounds softened, and they started to include trees or Italianate landscapes. His sources of light were daringly complex, shining through — and even around the back of — his elaborate displays, which used sweeping rhythms to draw the eye in circular motions.

The overall effect was intended to embody the refinement of Dutch society while simultaneously dazzling the beholder. His paintings celebrate nature and delight the scientifically curious. And their coded messages of abundance, transience and decay are in keeping with the tradition of vanitas painting.

Combined, the two works coming to Christie’s include more than 30 species of plants.

One shows a group of flowers in a terracotta vase, which is adorned with a relief depicting a putto. Flowing in a sinuous ogee, or S-shape, is a composition of a poppy, peonies, pink roses, red-and-white carnations and a creeping tendril of morning glory. In the lower right corner is a bird’s nest complete with five eggs, which looks like it’s about to topple from a marble ledge into reality.

Its pendant depicts an open-topped wicker box overflowing with fruit, including grapes, cherries, a peach, a cracked walnut and a split pomegranate. Around the edges are white roses and vine tendrils, which emphasise the painting’s diagonal arrangement.

The pair are remarkably similar to two paintings now in the permanent collection of the Staatliches Museum Schwerin in Germany. Surviving correspondence between their commissioner, Duke Christian Ludwig von Mecklenburg, his agent, A.N. van Haften, and Van Huysum shed a fascinating light on the artist’s creative process.

The order is confirmed in a letter dated February 1740. In a follow-up, written in March 1741, Van Huysum explains, ‘I am, at present, occupied in painting the pieces.’ In July 1742, he stalls delivery again: ‘I hope to finish painting the two pieces this year.’

By the time the artist acknowledged receipt of the substantial amount of 2,000 guilders for the pair, it was December 1743.

Why did it take him almost four years to finish the paintings? The letters also reveal that, for accuracy’s sake, Van Huysum preferred to paint living things.

‘Last year I could not get a yellow rose, else it would have been finished,’ he says in one. These delays caused by seasonal access to certain plants, as the artist travelled back and forth to the horticultural centre of Haarlem, quickly turned weeks into months.

The pair of paintings offered at Christie’s, which likely took just as long, are his last known works, dated 1744/45 — two years after Duke Christian Ludwig von Mecklenburg received his pair.

During the 1700s, they were probably in the collection of Herman ten Kate, a wealthy Amsterdam cloth merchant who also owned Johannes Vermeer’s Woman Reading a Letter — now one of the Rijksmuseum’s masterpieces. In more recent times, they were in the possession of Qaboos bin Said Al Said, the Sultan of Oman.

In 2024, two of Van Huysum’s finest flower paintings went on temporary show at Strawberry Hill House, which was built by Horace Walpole, third son of the first British prime minister, Sir Robert Walpole. Today, his flower paintings can also be found in the permanent collections of the Louvre in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and the National Gallery in London.

The Old Masters Evening Sale takes place on 1 July 2025 and will be on view until then as part of Christie’s Classic Week season in London