A sprig of damask roses, a white and red carnation and a thistle, tied with a blue ribbon, with a red admiral, on a stone ledge

This apparently casually arranged, intimate still life is one of very few pictures painted on such a small scale by van Aelst. It can be compared with the picture in the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, which is dated 1675. Both are of the same dimensions and show the same flowers, except for the thistle which does not appear in the Fitzwilliam picture (see the catalogue of the exhibition, Richard Green, London, The Cabinet Picture. Dutch and Flemish Masters of the Seventeenth Century, 14 April - 7 May 1999, p. 52, illustrated).