Flowers in the Mauritshuis

Floral still lifes are among the most popular paintings at the Mauritshuis. The museum has a fine collection of painted bouquets of flowers from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries by floral specialists like Ambrosius Bosschaert, Willem van Aelst, Jan Davidsz de Heem and Rachel Ruysch. This whimsically designed book, intended for a wide public, is about these floral still lifes. It explores the sudden emergence of the genre shortly after 1600, the role botanists played, the rarity of the flowers represented and the tulip fever, which claimed so many victims in 1637. The book guides you through the changes that have taken place over two hundred years in floral still life painting, while close-up images enable you to admire a bouquet of flowers bloom by bloom.