GEMÄLDE ALTER MEISTER 28. MÄRZ 2025

rare species in their gardens, probably particularly encouraged the demand for flower still lifes as a separate genre in painting. From 1593 to 1613, Bosschaert was listed in the St. Lucas Guild, but he also worked as an art dealer. In 1615 Bosschaert first went to Bergen op Zoom, from 1616-1619 to Utrecht and from 1619- 1621 to Breda. He died in The Hague in 1621 while delivering a flower still life to his commissioner Frederick van Schurman, the bottelier of Prince Maurits of Orange (1567–1625). The painting is now in the National Gallery of Art, Washington (dated 1621, oil on copper, 31.6 x 21.6 cm, inv. no. 1996.35.1). Our flower still life may also have been painted in Breda. Laurens Johannes Bol pointed out that the flowers depicted in Bosschaert's bouquets never actually bloomed at the same time and should therefore be seen as a composed arrangement (Bol 1960, p. 20 ff). The most precious types of flowers are combined into a single work. For this, Bosschaert had not only examples from nature but also a number of botanical drawings and printed illus- trations as models, such as those in the florilegia of Rembertus Dodonaeus (1516–1585) and Carolus Clusius (1526–1609), two important botanists of the 16th century, as well as the prints of Adriaen Collaert (c. 1560–1618). Compared to the also copper-plated bouquet of flowers sold at Koller in 2008 (ill. 1) and which is an example of Bosschaert's early work, this still life is characterised by an increase in spatial depth and precision of architectural background design. While the ear- ly bouquet still has a monochrome background, the vault of the niche can now be seen, enlarging the pictorial space in the back- ground. The three-dimensionality of the flowers and leaves is thus perfected and the volume of the bouquet accented. Shadow re- flections of the individual flowers and leaves can be seen on the stone back wall, further enhancing the overall spatial impression. These characteristics can also be found in the bouquet by Amb- rosius Bosschaert the Elder in the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen, which is dated 1618 (oil on copper, 55.5 x 39.5 cm, inv. no. KMSsp211). Here, too, sea snails are depicted, and their detailed reproduction makes it possible to identify them. In the 17th century, shells and sea snails came to Holland on the ships of the Dutch East and West India Companies and were sold to collectors for sometimes large sums of money. As 'Naturalia', curiosities and objects of scientific study, they found their way into both courtly and bourgeois art and collector's cabinets. Hendrick Goltzius (1558–1617) is exemplary in his Portrait of the Dutch merchant Jan Govertsz. van der Aar (c. 1544–1612) from 1603, in which he proud- ly presents his collection of sea shells to the viewer (oil on canvas, 107.5 x 83 cm, Rotterdam, Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, loan from P. and N. de Boer Foundation 1960, inv. no. 3450). The accurate reproduction of the small animals in our painting ena- bles conchologists and lepidopterologists to identify the species. Thus, a marbled cone snail and a Cuban painted snail, Polymita picta picta, can be found at the bottom right of the stone slab. The butterfly on the left is a Queen of Spanish fritillary (ill. 2). Ambrosius Bosschaert's monogram, consisting of the intertwined initials A and B, can also be seen at the bottom left of the niche. The arrangement may recall the work of Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528), who was active a hundred years earlier, and whose monogram appears in a comparable way. Dürer was one of the first artists to include precise observation of nature in his work. Ambrosius Boss- chaert the Elder thus aligned himself with the tradition of scientific observation and demonstrated his own esteem and position in art history at the beginning of the 17th century in the Netherlands. CHF 250 000/350 000 (€ 265 960/372 340) 29