Still Life of Flowers

This lush and colorful composition by Cornelis van Spaendonck, a Dutch-trained artist who made a successful career in Paris, is a later example of the long tradition of skilled Dutch flower paintings. Lilacs, columbine, amaryllis, peony, rose, poppy, and, of course, tulips are all shown, according to convention, at the height of their beauty, despite their divergent blooming times. Van Spaendonck shows his virtuosity not only in the immaculate flowers themselves but in the illusionistic dewdrops on the poppy leaf at lower left, and in the texture and reflectivity of the stone ledge on which the urns are placed.

While by this time the symbolism or moralizing message conveyed in earlier Dutch still lifes had receded as a motivation, Van Spaendonck still includes visual conceits to inspire thought. The purple poppy at lower center, which droops three-dimensionally over the stone ledge, is associated with sleep as far back as the Greek god Hypnos, and here it seems to have overpowered the bacchante and faun in the classical relief immediately next to it. The blue and white morning glory, with its wide-open blooms, announces that the day has begun, chiding the sleepers. Likewise, the pomegranate—long a symbol of fertility, abundance, and renewal from its association with Persephone, the queen of the underworld—and some freshly harvested grapes underscore the cycle of waking and sleeping in a broader seasonal sense.

(Andrew C. Weislogel, A Handbook of the Collections, 2018)