A Basket of Flowers (1620s)

Brueghel, Jan the Younger (1601-1678)

A Basket of Flowers
probably 1620s
Oil on wood, 47 x 68.3 cm
Metropolitan Museum of ArtNew York

Jan Brueghel the Younger was part of an artistic dynasty that transformed Flemish landscape, genre, and still-life painting. Jan the Younger took over his father Jan the Elder’s studio in 1625 and learned from his practice of animating floral arrangements with insects and fallen blossoms. The butterfly perched atop the basket here adds further liveliness to the composition and may have symbolic associations with the soul and resurrection. (MET)