Hibiscus, parrot tulips, carnations, a rose, an iris, snowballs and other flowers in a vase on a partially draped stone ledge, with a garden tiger moth

Nicolaes van Veerendael was born in Antwerp in 1626, training under his father, Willem van Veerendael, before joining the Antwerp Guild of Saint Luke in 1657. Highly regarded in his own lifetime, he collaborated with other leading Antwerp masters such as David Teniers the Younger and Jan Davidsz. de Heem, and through pupils such as Jean-Baptiste Morel, had a profound impact on eighteenth-century Flemish flower painting.

Famed for his closely studied effects of light (displayed here in the water droplets clinging to the rose petal, and falling onto the cloth below), the verisimilitude of his flowers is equally striking, and indeed according to the eighteenth-century biographer Jacob Campo Weyerman, it sometimes took him four days to finish a single flower (see De levens-beschryvingen der Nederlandsche konst-schilders en konst-schilderessen, vol. III, 1729, pp. 234-5).

Based on stylistic comparisons, the painting can be dated to the early 1670s, and while more restrained, it can be compared to the painting in the Fitzwilliam museum, Cambridge, signed and dated 1673 as well as the still life signed and dated 1670, sold at Christie's, New York, 28 January 2009, lot 71 (offered as a pair; $602,500). In the controlled palette and composition, we see a debt to previous Antwerp masters such as Daniel Seghers (1590-1661) and Jan Breughel I (1563-1625).

Van Veerendael’s bouquets from the 1670s are more informal, and insects and vanitas elements are sometimes included, indicating his familiarity with the work of another Antwerp master, Jan Davidsz. de Heem, with whom he collaborated on the Flower Still-life with Crucifix and Skull now in the Alte Pinakothek, Munich, which also dates from this period.

We are grateful to Fred Meijer, of the RKD, the Hague, for endorsing the attribution on the basis of photographs.