Dutch Flowers

Nice exhibition at the National Gallery giving a quick overview of the Dutch genre of flower painting and how it developed in the 17th and 18th centuries.

The early works showed a detailed interest in botany and coincide with the development of botanical gardens and tulip mania. Later work was more decorative. I loved the early pictures by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder who painted in oil on copper and often depicted the flowers in a glass vase.

It was great to see work by a female artist Rachel Ruysch whose father was head of Amsterdam’s Botanical Gardens.

The pictures were shown against dark walls which concentrated you eye on them and there was a useful chart naming the different flowers in the pictures. The commentaries on the pictures were excellent linking the painters and their styles.

Closes on 29 August 2016.

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