Ambrosius Bosschaert was a pioneer in the history of Dutch still lifes and a painter of joyful flower bouquets. He had an unerring awareness of composition, and delighted in combining flowers with a wide variety of colors and shapes to create a pleasing and uplifting visual experience.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2000: 26-27, color repro. 2002 Ebert-Schifferer
Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille, ed.
The Dutch and Flemish took extraordinary delight in depictions of the natural world as an expression of God’s everlasting blessing. The flower paintings of Jan Davidsz de Heem celebrate the beauty of flora while at the same time exemplifying the concept of Ars longa, vita brevis (art is long, life is short) embodied in the Dutch still-life paintings of the seventeenth century.
National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1999: 61-63, no. 16, fig. 55. 2002 Ebert-Schifferer
For this depiction of Joseph spurning the advances of his Egyptian employer’s wife, as recounted in the Book of Genesis, Guercino chose a three-quarter length format that presses the life-sized figures close to the spectator. He has filled the scene with the bed — all rumpled sheets and opulent curtains.
Ebert-Schifferer, Sybille, ed.
Collection of Teresa Heinz [10] See Anna Tummers’s entry on this painting in Sybille Ebert-Schifferer
