NARRATOR:
Cut flowers were prized in 17th-century Holland. In the few months they were available each year, they were carefully arranged in vases, baskets or shallow drinking cups. In this still life by Jan Brueghel the younger, they are laid out in a gilt tazza, an elegant wide bowl on a stem. The artist depicted flowers common to his native land—pink and white roses, carnations, pansies, and forget-me-nots. Fresh herbs and small foliage weave the arrangement into a unified whole. A few sprigs have fallen on the table, where a tiny lady bugs crawls amidst delicate petals and glistening drops of water. Details are rendered with exquisite accuracy, articulated in gentle, deliberate brushstrokes.
Dutch still lifes often contained moralizing messages, but the meaning of Breughel’s composition is unclear. Rising from the arrangement, for example is a sprig of rosemary. It represented eternity, because its leaves remain fragrant for a long time. Carnations were symbols of love. The expensive gold tazza may be a reference to vanitas, an exhortation to enjoy the bounty of life—which is all too brief—while we can. Or the panel may simply be a celebration of the fact that painters can preserve the beauty of flowers long after they have withered.
Flowers in a Gilt Tazza
c. 1620
Jan Brueghel the Younger (Flemish, 1601-1678)
On View
This painting by Jan Brueghel the Younger demonstrates the exquisite and meticulous style that fed the growing appetite of seventeenth-century patrons for still lifes. The challenge of rendering such varied and complex natural forms, as well as the ornate tazza, demanded extraordinary technical skill. The gilt tazza, for example, is frequently depicted in Baroque painting holding wine or such delicacies as biscuits or candied fruits. It presents a challenge to the artist to render the circular form, the astonishing details of the goldsmith’s work and the lustrous finish, all of which Brueghel has handled with confidence, layering thin strokes of yellow over darker gold to suggest the cup’s reflective surfaces.
To delineate the mass of delicate flowers, however, Brueghel has employed a closer handling, so that his technique is almost invisible, but not quite. Netticheyt, or neatness, describes this style of painting, which complements the microscopic detail of the dainty, vibrant flowers displayed in the tazza. The artist completes his tour de force with two butterflies, a ladybug and drops of water on the shelf, calling attention to his skill at trompe l’oeil.
Details
- Artist Name: Jan Brueghel the Younger (Flemish, 1601-1678)
- Title: Flowers in a Gilt Tazza
- Date: c. 1620
- Medium: Oil on panel
- Dimensions: 21-15/16 x 16-7/8 in. (55.7 x 42.9 cm)
- Credit Line: The Norton Simon Foundation
- Accession Number: F.1972.13.P
- Copyright: © The Norton Simon Foundation
Object Information
Maria-Luisa de Acocer (wife of Don Pedro Cortina y Mauri, Spanish Ambassador to France, 1966-19??).
(sale, Paris, Palais Galliera, 7 December 1971, lot 6, ill, as atelier de Jan Brueghel de Velours, Fleurs dans une coupe, to);
[Newhouse Galleries, New York, stock no. 18568, in partnership with MAHLA, Zurich/Frederick Mont; sold 18 May 1972 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
(sale, Paris, Palais Galliera, 7 December 1971, lot 6, ill, as atelier de Jan Brueghel de Velours, Fleurs dans une coupe, to);
[Newhouse Galleries, New York, stock no. 18568, in partnership with MAHLA, Zurich/Frederick Mont; sold 18 May 1972 to];
The Norton Simon Foundation.
[on loan]
- Oberlin, Oberlin College, Allen Memorial Art Museum, 1972-05-22 to 1973-05-08
[on loan]
- Phoenix, Phoenix Art Museum, 1980-11-18 to 1981-05-20
[on loan]
- Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1973-05-09 to 1974-11-26
Significant Objects: The Spell of Still Life
- Norton Simon Museum, 2012-07-20 to 2013-01-21
Tulips are in Bloom
- Norton Simon Museum, 1993-04-29 to 1993-08
- Connaissance des Arts,
- Ertz, Klaus, Jan Breughel der ältere (1568-1625) Die Gemäld mit kritschem Oeuvrekatalog, 1979, no. 379 pp. 531, 602
- Norton Simon Museum, Selected Paintings at the Norton Simon Museum, 1980, p. 50
- Ertz, Klaus, Jan Breughel, the Younger: Flemish Painters in the Circle of the Great Masters, 1983, no. 285 pp. 449, 448
- Segal, Sam, A Prosperous Past: The Sumptuous Sill Life in the Netherlands 1600-1700, 1988, no. 10, fig. 6.2 pp. 100, 214
- Masterpieces from the Norton Simon Museum, 1989, p. 70
- Campbell, Sara, Collector Without Walls: Norton Simon and His Hunt for the Best, 2010, cat. 786 p. 338
- Andrea Bacchi, Francesca Mambelli, Elisabetta Sambo, La Natura morta di Federico Zeri, 2015, fig. 6 pp. 293, 295, 305, 307, 310, 316, 317
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