A Vase of Flowers

Margareta Haverman

1716 · Oil on wood · European Paintings

Although only two of her works are known to survive today, Haverman was celebrated at a young age for her gifts as a flower painter. She studied with the notoriously secretive flower painter Jan van Huysum and later gained admission to the French Royal Academy in Paris. The artist’s skill is on full display in this magnificent arrangement of flowers and fruit, in which she used innovative pigments such as Prussian blue. Over time, the organic yellow lake pigment has faded, resulting in the present blue appearance of the leaves. Haverman’s confident signature appears as though incised in the plinth supporting the bouquet.

Artist

Margareta Haverman

Date

1716

Medium

Oil on wood

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

Purchase, 1871