Basket of Flowers

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Artist: Balthasar van der Ast (Dutch, 1593–1657)
Medium: oil on panel
Size: painted surface: 17.8 x 23.5 cm (7 x 9 1/4 in.); overall (with additions): 18.4 x 24.4 cm (7 1/4 x 9 5/8 in.); framed: 38.4 x 43.8 x 3.2 cm (15 1/8 x 17 1/4 x 1 1/4 in.)
Museum: National Gallery of Art
Rights: CC0 — no rights reserved

A basket overflowing with flowers sits on a table alongside fruit, berries, and seashells in this horizontal still life painting. The wide, low straw-colored basket has a woven base and more open, rib-like sides. The bouquet is made up of white and pink roses, a sky-blue iris and another with pale yellow and lavender-purple leaves. There are also a carnation striped with red and white, flame-orange poppies, and at least three tulips, including one that is scarlet red, a white tulip veined with red, and one with red petals streaked with yellow.

Other flowers and dark green stems and leaves fill out the arrangement. The basket sits on a slate-gray tabletop that extends off both sides of the painting. Four shells sit to our left of the basket. These include a woodcock murex shell with a spiraling head with spikes and a long, spiny tail; an elongated, smooth conch shell with an ivory-white and brown calico surface; and light blue snail shell.

Finally, closest to us, the largest, spiraling triton shell is occupied by a hermit crab. A sprig of glowing red berries sits at the front center of the composition. To our right, a cluster of fruit includes purple and green grapes on the vines, red cherries, a red plum, and two pieces of yellow and blush-pink fruit. The scene is lit from our left against a darkened background, so a dragonfly in the upper right corner is nearly lost in shadow. The artist signed the painting in the lower left corner, “B.vander.ast.”