Still Life with Flowers and Fruit (Full)

About this work

Artist

Jan van Huysum (1682–1749)

Year

c. 1721

Medium

Oil on panel

Original size

66.5 × 52 cm

Collection

Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam

Movement

Dutch Golden Age

White and blue grapes, a split melon and pomegranate, peaches, plums and a sprig of red currants lie heaped on a marble plinth with a vine and hollyhocks climbing behind them, and a vase of poppies glimpsed in the background. Jan van Huysum painted it around 1721, at the point where his still lifes were growing lighter, more transparent and more theatrical, set against park-like grounds rather than the dark backdrops of the previous century. The arrangement is deliberately precarious; the fruit looks ready to roll off the ledge. Van Huysum was the most expensive still-life painter in Europe in his lifetime and guarded his glazing technique so closely that he admitted no one to his studio. The panel hangs in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, on display in the first-floor galleries, as a late flowering of the Dutch fruit piece.

This print reproduces the whole work, uncropped, from a high-resolution scan of the original. The original is in the public domain.