Dutch Flower Painting

Tot Lering en Vermaak.  ‘To instruct and delight’.
An Introduction to Flower Painting in the Dutch Golden Age

A Talk given to the Anglo-Netherlands Society at Judith Blacklock Flower School in March 2019

When is a vase of flowers more than just a vase of flowers? Dutch floral still lives of the 17th and 18th centuries were designed both to show the technical virtuosity of the great artists of the age and to carry moral, religious, political, historical and commercial messages. This lecture looks at the stylistic and art historical development of the great Dutch flower painting tradition over 120 years whilst considering what these paintings tell us about the new Protestant Dutch Republic.

A Talk given to the Anglo-Netherlands Society at Judith Blacklock Flower School, London in March 2019