Roses, tulips, bluebells and carnations in a wicker basket on a stone ledge

Jan Breughel II probably studied with his father, Jan Breughel I, prior to a trip to Milan (where he met his father's patron, Cardinal Federico Borromeo) and Palermo in the first half of the 1620s. Upon his father's sudden death from a cholera epidemic in early 1625, Jan II returned to Antwerp and took over the studio. The composition of this painting ultimately derives from Jan I's A basket of flowers of about 1620 in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (see K. Ertz, Jan Brueghel der Ältere: Die Gemälde, III, Lingen, 2010, pp. 960-961, no. 453). Further variants by Jan II are also known, including a painting offered Christie's, Amsterdam, 11 May 1994, lot 170.

Dr. Klaus Ertz has endorsed the attribution based on firsthand inspection of the work and suggested a date in the 1630s. His certificate (dated 16 January 2012) will be included with this painting.