Flowers beneath a Cartouche

A garland of flowers including roses, tulips and columbines, with fruit, a stalk of wheat and a red admiral butterfly; this is the lower half of a painting, which presumably showed a garland surrounding a cartouche. Nicolas van Veerendael (1626-1691) was a Flemish painter who primarily painted flower-pieces. His early works, reminiscent of still lifes by Daniel Seghers, are primarily small, bright, graceful bouquets in tall, narrow vases, or cartouches and garlands surrounding a religious scene, sometimes by another artist, such as the Cartouche with the Virgin Surrounded by a Floral Wreath (Berlin, Gemäldegal.), in which the central grisaille is by Erasmus Quellinus. The bouquets and garlands from the 1670s such as P.16-1914 are more informal, and insects and vanitas elements are sometimes included, indicating his debt to the work of Jan Davidsz. de Heem, with whom he collaborated.