Lot Essay
Although Peeters occasionally included a vase of flowers in her still life compositions, pure flower paintings by her are extremely rare and the present painting is one of only four recorded signed examples. While contemporary exponents of still life paintings such as Jan Breughel, Ambrosius Bosschaert and Osias Beert depicted vases almost overfilling with the number of blooms and varieties of flowers, Clara Peeters' vases display a limited number of blooms ususally seen from a low view point.
Both Hairs and Nochlin (op. cit.) dated the present painting to circa 1615, but Decoteau (op. cit., p. 26) places it a few years earlier, relating it to a group of paintings of circa 1611-2. While the asymmetry of the flowers in the vase and the realistic appearance of the bouquet are more advanced than the Dainties, signed and dated 1611, in the Prado, Madrid, Decoteau suggests that it predates the Vase of Flowers, signed and dated 1612, in a private collection, Copenhagen, where the bouquet fills more of the pictorial space than the present painting.
Both Hairs and Nochlin (op. cit.) dated the present painting to circa 1615, but Decoteau (op. cit., p. 26) places it a few years earlier, relating it to a group of paintings of circa 1611-2. While the asymmetry of the flowers in the vase and the realistic appearance of the bouquet are more advanced than the Dainties, signed and dated 1611, in the Prado, Madrid, Decoteau suggests that it predates the Vase of Flowers, signed and dated 1612, in a private collection, Copenhagen, where the bouquet fills more of the pictorial space than the present painting.