Dutch Flower Painting | Planting Diaries

Study of flowers in a vase; with wrestling putti on the vase and roses tumbling out, a poppy lying across the base. 1720 Captions and images © The Trustees of the British Museum

Jan van Huysum (1682 – 1749) is considered amongst the finest Dutch painters of still life arrangements of fruit and flowers. Based in Amsterdam, his work was highly sought after by collectors all over Europe in the 18th century and remains well represented in museums and galleries worldwide today. Van Huysum was born into an artistic family, with three brothers also working as painters, and his father Justus noted for his skill in flower painting and decorative arts.

The illusion created by van Huysum’s flower paintings, of abundant flowers and foliage recorded before their freshness fades, has much to do with the artist’s apparent suspension of time. When we consider the vase life of the flowers we might expect them to last perhaps a few days before they begin to deteriorate. But this timeframe seems too short to produce the fine detail in a painting containing dozens of blooms.

Another clue that the arrangements are more complex than might appear at first glance is that they frequently contain flowers that belong to different seasons. Tulips which should finish flowering in May, appear alongside hollyhocks and French marigolds which bloom later, in June or July. Flowers with short stems are blended seamlessly into these arrangements, although in reality they would wilt very quickly, unable to reach a source of water.

All these anomalies seem to suggest the paintings are composite works, and demonstrate the formidable skill of the still life artist, the creator of a moment of floral profusion beyond what is practically possible.

Perhaps with the aim of preserving the mystique of his artistry, or discouraging the prospect of competition in a lucrative market for still life works, Jan van Huysum was said to be protective of his painting techniques. So this collection of flower studies, bequeathed to The British Museum in 1753 by Sir Hans Sloane, provides helpful insights into the process of planning his elaborate paintings.

Loose, fluent sketches of magnificent arrangements of flowers, foliage and fruit show individual specimens carefully placed, with the largest, structural stems and blooms used to form a framework, into which smaller flowers could be inserted later.

Detailed flower studies demonstrate how different plant stems behave when cut and the shapes they make, how they arch or trail, or how the weight of double flowers pull a stem downwards. Tulips, which continue to grow after cutting, appear full of movement, their stems twisting and bending as their mature flowers open fully. Hollyhocks are chosen for their height and volume in the composition of an arrangement as well as for their beautiful flowers.

Textures of both flowers and foliage are closely observed. Van Huysum seems to delight in the coarse, glaucous leaves of the opium poppy, its robust foliage a useful contrast with delicate plants. He often chooses to paint flowers facing away from the viewer, capturing the slightly waxy sheen of the undersides of tulip and poppy petals.

Some of van Huysum’s naturalistic studies record imperfections; a few rose leaves are damaged, perhaps by caterpillars, and a trailing nasturtium stem shows some dying leaves, with a papery texture. In this way, details in Dutch flower paintings allude to themes of vanitas, the suggestion that life in all its beauty is but a fleeting moment, soon to disappear.

Van Huysum’s image library of flowers in full bloom must have been a valuable reminder of their forms and scale, in the months when these plants were unavailable to draw from life. Each study possesses a contemplative stillness, reflecting the quiet grace of each plant.

His flower studies also provide an overview of the fashionable and collectable flowers cultivated in the gardens of his wealthy clients. Flowers with variegated petals, like the striped or broken tulips and pinks were highly prized, as were double roses like Rosa centifolila. Sometimes known as the cabbage rose, or the Provence rose, this plant with its large, pink flowers was developed by growers in The Netherlands in the 17^th century and later grown extensively in southern France for use in the perfume industry.

Thanks to the success of Jan van Huysum’s work in his lifetime, there are many examples of his flower paintings on view in public collections in the UK – Art UK has a useful list. Strawberry Hill House in Twickenham is currently hosting an exhibition of two works from a private collection, until 8^th September 2024. The British Museum has fifty three of van Huysum’s flower studies in its collection some of which appear here – link to all of them below.

Flower study; a yellow parrot tulip

Flower study; a Cornflower and a Tulip

Flower study; a variety of Tulip, red and white stripes

Flower study; an open Tulip, pink-red and white stripes

Flower study; a variety of Rose, two pink and white flowers

Flower study; two pink rose buds starting to open

Flower study; two pink Roses in full bloom, with two buds and foliage

Flower studies; pink roses in full-bloom and an orange flowerhead below

Flower study; a variety of Iris

Flower study; Pinks, two red and white striped flowerheads with buds

Flower study; flowerhead of a Pink with red and white stripes, twigs of a tree above with leaves and berries

Flower studies; including two Pansy flowers and a ragged red and white Tulip (?)

Flower and fruit study; an orange flower, and three peaches (?)

Flower study; trailing foliage with an orange flower

Flower study; shades of pink with two yellow flowers above

Flower study; four open red blooms and five buds on a stem

Flower study; a ragged red Poppy and a trailing stem with small red and pink flowers

Study of foliage

Study of flowers in a vase; two putti on the vase

Study of flowers in a vase; putti wrestling on the vase

Study of flowers in a vase; with wrestling putti on the vase and a fly on one of the flowers, a statue and two figures beyond

Vase of flowers; the vase decorated with an image of two seated children or putti

Further reading:

Exhibition of two paintings by Jan van Huysum at Strawberry Hill House here

Art UK’s listing of works by Jan van Huysum here

Jan van Huysum on Wikipedia here

Jan van Huysum’s flower studies at The British Museum here

Still Life with Flowers in a Decorative Vase 1670 – 75 Maria van Oosterwijck (Wikimedia Commons)

We tend to think of grasses used as decorative garden plants as a new development in planting design. Pioneered by Karl Foerster in Germany in the 1930s, his naturalistic planting schemes used grasses and late flowering perennials, a style which has been embraced and developed by Dutch designer Piet Oudolf, and many others, and remains very influential today. So it may come as a surprise that long before the current fashion for prairie style planting, grasses were grown in European gardens as far back as the sixteenth century.

At the front of the arrangement in the painting above by Maria van Oosterwijck (1630 – 1693) there is a strand of boldly striped green and white ribbon grass, contrasting with the dark background and the pink flowers of a hollyhock. The long leaves make contact with marble surface upon which the vase of flowers stands and seem to be reaching out further, almost to the edge of the canvas, inviting us to touch them. One of a pair of beetles is starting to climb a leaf.

If we believe that the blooms depicted in the Dutch flower paintings of the seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries represent those most valued by horticulturalists and collectors, it is interesting to see this grass given such a prominent place among the roses, carnations and poppies.

The RHS lists ten common names for Phalaris arundinacea var. picta including gardener’s garters, bride’s laces, and lady grass as well as the more familiar ribbon grass. The number of names would seem to indicate that the plant has a long history of cultivation and was well known in the UK.

John Gerard in The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes (1597) describes the grass as being, ‘like to laces of white and greene silke, very beautiful, and faire to behold’ and explains it is ‘kept and maintained in our English gardens, rather for pleasure than for vertue’, (meaning that ribbon grass had no known practical or medicinal qualities). We know that ribbon grass was cultivated in ordinary gardens in the nineteenth century as it is mentioned by John Clare in a list of cottage garden plants alongside wallflowers, pinks and lavender.

Ladie Lace Grasse from The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes 1597 (Biodiversity Heritage Library)

Ribbon grass is quite tall (approx 60cm) so too high to fit into the standard rectangular illustration frame size for the Herball. In the 1597 version the whole plant has been shrunk to fit the frame, but in the updated Herball of 1633 the artist has indicated scale more accurately by cutting the grass stem and placing the roots, stalk and flowering head together.

Lady-lace Grasse from The Herball, or, Generall Historie of Plantes 1633 (Biodiversity Heritage Library)

Ribbon grass is a very easy plant to grow. An ideal site would be sunny with a damp soil; it will tolerate some shade and a dry soil, but the seedheads will not form unless it receives a few hours of sun each day. At its best in spring and summer, the stems collapse in winter, so it doesn’t make good winter structure like miscanthus or calamagrostis.

It would be good to see more ribbon grass grown in historical planting schemes, as it was clearly a valued garden plant in the past. It associates well with herbaceous plants and creates pools of brightness next to evergreens. Rachel Ruysch (1664 – 1750), a contemporary of Oosterwijck, also uses ribbon grass in her compositions – the National Gallery and the Fitzwilliam Museum have examples of her paintings in their collections. Well worth checking out on their websites (or better still, visit the galleries if you can).

Garland with blossoms 1683 Rachel Ruysch (Wikimedia Commons)

Phalaris arundinacea var. picta or Ribbon grass

Planting Diaries

Gardens, planting styles and their origins

Category Archives: Dutch Flower Painting

Jan van Huysum’s Flower Studies

Ribbon Grass

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