Vintage Romanticism Tote bag

Ambrosius Bosschaert. Lived 1573-1621

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder was born in Antwerp but lived in the Northern Netherlands since 1587. He began his training in Antwerp and joined the Middelburg guild as a master in 1593. He specialised in painting precise flower and fruit still lifes, in the manner of botanical illustrations but grouped in compositions, which carefully balance form and colour. Ambrosius Bosschaert would have made drawings and preliminary sketches of each flower and placed them into the picture as he worked. These specimens would not have been cut and shown in a vase; they would have remained in the ground for breeding or for an elegant garden display. This painting was meant to last, for a wealthy collector and connoisseur to admire long after the flowers had gone. The petals have a brilliant sheen, their jewel-like colours against the dark wall almost too bright to be taken as real. Bosschaert worked on a copper support to allow the smoother application of paint than on canvas, enabling him to show intricate detail. He used layers of glazes to produce a brilliance that has remained virtually without fading for over 400 years.

Flowers in a Glass Vase Ambrosius
1614
Oil on copper

If pictures had a smell, then Ambrosius Bosschaert’s paintings would fill the air with exotic scent. In this picture, his many different flowers are displayed against an almost black background to show their colours, shapes and textures to the fullest – pale roses, yellow and white narcissi, a single yellow chrysanthemum. The delicate petals of a purple cyclamen hide behind its broad leaf in the shadows at the base of the arrangement, where a fritillary hangs its head close to a red rosebud. A mauve anemone seems suspended in the dark space between two handsome tulips, one white, one yellow, streaked with flames of red, standing out stiff and proud against the profusion of petals below them.

But there’s one flower, on the left, that seems not to fit any particular description. The petals are splayed open as if exhausted. This too is a tulip, but faded, its time done. Bosschaert is showing us the lifespan of these flowers, but subtly, and placed together, still making them a thing of beauty. The white tulip is partly in bud; the yellow, fully open; the third, with its frilled petals, dying. The roses too show nature’s progression – the tight red bud in the shadows, the white rose, open and perfect, and just below, the full-blown, grey-pink, fragile bloom at the end of its brief life.

The insects in the picture are demonstrations of the artist’s skill in painting lifelike creatures in detail, but, like the flowers, show the lifespan of all living things, including ours. The shiny little caterpillar climbs up the stalk of the tulip. The white butterfly, the adult creature, folds its wings on the dying tulip. The fly at the foot of the vase, with its brief lifespan, takes the cycle to its end. Even the roemer, the wine glass that holds the flowers, is fragile, likely to be short lived. Again, Bosschaert proves his skill in capturing the transparent delicacy of the glass with its tear-shaped beads reflecting the light, close to and comparing with the veined, translucent wings of the fly.

• 100% spun polyester fabric
• Bag size: 15″ × 15″ (38.1 × 38.1 cm)
• Capacity: 2.6 US gal (10 l)
• Maximum weight limit: 44lbs (20 kg)
• Dual handles made from 100% natural cotton bull denim
• Handle length 11.8″ (30 cm), width 1″ (2.5 cm)
• The handles can slightly differ depending on the fulfillment location
• Blank product components sourced from China