Nicolaes van Veerendael: A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase

A Bouquet of Flowers in a Crystal Vase, Nicolaes van Veerendael, 1662, The Metropolitan Museum of Art (MET), New York

This Parisian spring, I wanted to bring you flowers. The season is bursting with colour, carrying that freshness and those scents that brighten the days. I perfectly understand the desire that seventeenth-century Flemish art lovers had to hang such bouquets on their walls, to keep their presence throughout the year.
For that is precisely one of the secrets of these floral still lifes: Van Veerendael would gather on a single canvas flowers that never bloom together in nature, drawn from different seasons. An impossible bouquet, and therefore an eternal one.
But before we leave this painting, did you notice the reflection of a window on the crystal vase?That small miracle of painting, so discreet, says everything about the care and virtuosity of the artist. Enough to make our day.

Your eye stops first on the red-and-white striped tulip. It reigns, proud, at the heart of the bouquet. Then comes the lavender iris, the Dutch rose, the coral carnation. A butterfly has settled in the lower left. It seems in no hurry.

What lies beneath the surface

Against a background of near-black darkness, Nicolaes van Veerendael orchestrates an explosion of light. The touch is precise, meticulous. Every petal catches the light differently. Look at the crystal vase: a window reflection is painted there with absolute discretion. That is where the virtuosity resides. The composition brings together flowers from different seasons, spring iris, summer rose, autumn anemone. This bouquet never existed in nature. That is its power. The oil on canvas, a modest format (49.5 × 40.3 cm), concentrates a breathtaking botanical density. Every species is identifiable. This is painting in the service of living things.

Van Veerendael and the great Flemish tradition

Born in Antwerp in 1640, Nicolaes van Veerendael entered the Guild of Saint Luke at seventeen. He trained in the shadow of two giants: Daniel Seghers for compositional rigour, and Jan Davidsz de Heem for naturalistic fineness of observation. This 1662 canvas is an early work, and it already bears the double signature of his masters: the Flemish tradition of Jan Brueghel the Elder and the Dutch precision of De Heem. Van Veerendael produced little. He lived modestly. But every canvas counts.

📍 At The Met

The Bouquet of Flowers is held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. This spring 2026, the Met is at the centre of the art world with Raphael: Sublime Poetry (until 28 June 2026), the first major American exhibition devoted to the Renaissance master, a reminder that this museum remains the global benchmark for Old Master painting, Flemish art included.
Source: metmuseum.org/exhibitions/raphael-sublime-poetry