Jan Brueghel der Jüngere, Lot n° 375

GROSS FLOWER Bunch Oil on wood. Fragment. 90 x 59 cm. Expertise by Dr. Klaus Ertz, Lingen, March 2020. As the son and first child of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), the Antwerp painter not only devoted himself to landscape painting themes, which were already cultivated by his father, but also, and especially, to the flower still life. For this genre of painting he was also able to use the experience of his father, the so-called "Blumenbrueghel". In contrast to the insertion of floral elements in landscapes, the solitary bouquet of flowers in a vase now also becomes a particularly cultivated pictorial theme. "Still life with flowers in a basket" or "in a china vase" now form a pictorial genre of their own. As a rule, the painter allows the colorfulness of the flowers to shine from dark to black background, but also next to the mostly shaded leaves. This is also the case in this painting. Although cut left and below, the effect of the arbitrarily arranged flowers is fascinating. While this was sometimes done without seasonal classification in order to demonstrate a baroque ideal, spring or early summer flowers are found here without exception. For example, the white lilies, which are highlighted in front of a red peony, next to a royal blue iris and variously coloured anemone flowers. Of course, the tulips are not missing, which had an almost spectacular economic importance, especially in Holland at that time. Remarkable is the at first sight boldly appearing colourfulness of the flower arrangement. On closer inspection, however, a system of color correlations inherent in the picture can be recognized: The reddish- or red-white flowers around the lower part - such as the lily, checkered flower and three tulips - form an only slightly raised slope, while the white lily stem dominates the steep diagonal of the entire picture area. The colourfulness of the floral still lifes of this period can be seen as a characteristic expression