Still Life with Flowers, Abraham van Beyeren, c. 1660 - 1690Abraham Hendricksz. Van Beyeren · 1690

This still life is probably the work that was in the 1857 Drekman sale, where the monogram was read as ‘AVP’.6 At the Van Hall auction a year later it was attributed to Rachel Ruysch, one of the most popular flower painters of the Golden Age.7 That the monogram was recognized as Abraham van Beyeren’s some decades later is in keeping with his fortuna critica around that time.8 His name had sunk into oblivion in the eighteenth century, but he was ranked among the foremost still-life artists by the end of the following one. The admiration for Van Beyeren’s work continued to grow in the twentieth century. His painted bouquets were considered among the most beautiful of the Golden Age.9 Warner, one of the first to write about the genre, was mesmerized by the artist’s Flower Still Life in the Mauritshuis: ‘When looking at a picture of this quality it conveys a sense of reality which is uncanny’.10 In his opinion the Rijksmuseum’s very similar canvas ‘just misses the extraordinary quality of the other […] but the freedom of brush-work is more easily seen’.11 Van Beyeren’s bouquets were admired for their ‘very soft touch’ by Bergström in 1956, and in 1994 Segal still believed them to show ‘great artistry’.12 More recently, according to Taylor, however, the artist failed to create a convincing illusion of space, the compositions were incoherent and his brushwork sloppy.13 It is hard, though, to judge the original appearance of the present painting, for it has suffered a striking loss of colour.14 The blues, in particular, have become so dull that some of the flowers can no longer be made out; in the foreground, the morning glories can still be identified, but what appear to be gentians on the lower left and upper right have become almost unrecognizable. Van Beyeren painted only a few of such flower pieces. They are thought to be from the first half of the 1660s, but apart from the fact that they were obviously inspired by De Heem’s output from a decade earlier we have no further clue as to their dating.15 A still life with a rummer and a rose by or after Van Beyeren was raffled at Jan de Bondt’s lottery in Wijk bij Duurstede in 1649, but it is unlikely that the artist depicted entire bouquets at such an early stage.16 Van Beyeren’s choice of flowers was not based on their popularity in any specific period. The flamed red and white tulips, the pink and white roses and the reddish opium poppy were fashionable throughout the century.17 He picked them specifically, it seems, for their colour combination. Among the characteristic aspects of Van Beyeren’s paintings is the fact that his flowers are already past full bloom. In combination with the pocket watch, they perhaps refer to the passing of time and the transience of life.18 Erlend de Groot, 2022 See Key to abbreviations, Rijksmuseum painting catalogues and Acknowledgements