Vase with Flowers

This bouquet is past its best. The flowers are drooping and starting to fade. In the middle, a wilted opium poppy has been cut off. The empty space left there lends depth to the bouquet.

Rachel Ruysch specialised in this sort of profuse flower still-life. She inherited her love of flowers and plants from her father, the renowned Amsterdam botanist Frederik Ruysch. Rachel had an international career as a painter and worked until a ripe old age.