# De Poolse Muts

- By: Balthasar van der Ast (Dutch, 1593/94–1657)
- Date: c. 1620–30
- Medium: brush and watercolor in red, green, and yellow with white heightening or grey wash on antique laid cream paper
- Classification: Drawing
- Dimensions: Support: 37.5 x 26.7 cm (14 3/4 x 10 1/2 in.); Matted: 49.7 x 39.1 x 0.3 cm (19 9/16 x 15 3/8 x 1/8 in.); Image: 30.3 x 19.9 cm (11 15/16 x 7 13/16 in.)
- Culture: Netherlands
- Credit line: John L. Severance Fund
- Museum: [Cleveland Museum of Art](https://clevelandart.org/art/2019.1)
- Rights: [Public domain (CC0)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/2019.1/2019.1_web.jpg
- Who can see it: Teens profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Still-life painting began in the Northern Netherlands (present-day Holland) around the turn of the 1600s. Still-life painter Balthasar van der Ast made this precise botanical study of a pink carnation as a reference that he could add later to a painting of an elaborate bouquet of flowers. Van der Ast inscribed the name “The Polish Cap,” on the sheet to suggest that the flower came from foreign lands.