# Bouquet of Flowers and Fruit with Blue Ribbon

- By: Maria van Oosterwijck (Dutch, 1630–1693)
- Date: c. 1680
- Medium: Oil on canvas
- Classification: Painting
- Dimensions: 36 × 28.3 cm (14 1/4 × 11 1/8 in.); Framed: 49.3 × 41.3 × 6.7 cm (19 3/8 × 16 1/4 × 2 5/8 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: Rhoades Foundation and Julius Lewis Acquisition Endowment Fund; Josephine and John J. Louis Jr. Endowed Acquisition Fund; C. Harker and Mae Svoboda Rhodes Acquisition Fund; John A. Bross Fund in memory of Louise Smith Bross
- Museum: [Art Institute of Chicago](https://www.artic.edu/artworks/264716)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/21b5c87b28198b7e9b49109d6cf5bec0.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

This seemingly straightforward scene by Maria van Oosterwijck, one of the few known female painters in the Dutch Republic, in fact depicts a fantastical image. The 11 species of flora, accompanied by a single grasshopper and hung from a nail by a ribbon, do not all blossom in the same season. Additionally, several of these varieties are not indigenous to Northern Europe. The arrangement thus reflects the global markets in which the Dutch participated: the sweet sultan (the orange flower at upper left) would have been imported from Turkey, while the bitter orange (beneath the ribbon at center) originated in the Mediterranean. Oosterwijck was renowned for such paintings of suspended bouquets.

Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0