A bouquet with a sunflower, roses, an iris, tulips, carnations and a camellia in a gilt mounted vase, with insects on a marble tabletop

Willem van Aelst specialized in still-life painting and is best known for his ornate depictions of glassware, gilded goblets, fruit and flowers. His compositions are markedly more dynamic than those of his predecessors and van Aelst adopted a bright and playful color palette for his flower bouquets, introducing strong contrasts of light and shadow. Van Aelst joined the Delft painter’s guild in November 1643 and set off for Italy shortly after, in 1649. In Florence he served as court painter to Ferdinando de’ Medici and joined the Bentvueghels, a group of fellow Northern artists working in Italy, remembered for both their intellectual pursuits and their Bacchic initiation rituals. Here he was given the bent-name ‘Vogelverschrikker’ (scarecrow), a nickname which appears on a number of still lifes produced during his Italian sojourn.

The present work, dated to the 1660s, was completed after his return to the Netherlands. His late style is characterized by smooth and highly detailed forms perhaps influenced by Matthias Withoos and Otto Marseus van Schrieck, both of whom he had encountered in Italy. Even after settling in Amsterdam he continued signing his works with the italianized version of his name ‘Guill.mo’, as is visible in the lower right of this painting.