De Poolse Muts

Balthasar Van Der Ast • 1620

De Poolse Muts, 1620

Click or press Enter to enlarge

Still-life painting began in the Northern Netherlands (present-day Holland) around the turn of the 1600s. Still-life painter Balthasar van der Ast made this precise botanical study of a pink carnation as a reference that he could add later to a painting of an elaborate bouquet of flowers. Van der Ast inscribed the name “The Polish Cap,” on the sheet to suggest that the flower came from foreign lands.

Subjects