Still Life of Fruit and Flowers

Also titled Stilleven met vruchten en bloemen

Balthasar van der Ast (Middelburg, 1593–1657)

1620

Medium
panel, oil paint (paint)
Classification
painting
Dimensions
support: height 39.2 cm x width 69.8 cm
Museum
Rijksmuseum
Credit line
Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt
Rights
Public Domain Mark, as the museum states it.
Who can see it
Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed

View at the Rijksmuseum

About this work

This still life invites close examination of all the details and elicits marvel at the richness of God’s creation: the colourful flowers, the exotic shells, but certainly also the beautiful insects. At the same time, decay is spreading. Fruit shows the first rotten spots, leaves are eaten away by caterpillars and snails and ants drag a dead fly. The painting is thus also about impermanence.