A Bouquet of Flowers

Against a dark background a colorful bouquet stands in a vase, many kinds of blooms open together, petals layered and stems spreading, all rendered with exacting precision. Clara Peeters was among the earliest women still-life painters in early seventeenth-century Flanders and a pioneer of the genre. Her work is known for its refined realism, and she sometimes painted tiny self-portraits in the reflections of metal vessels. The flowers in such bouquets often did not bloom at the same time; painters assembled them from studies made in different seasons. The pictures celebrate nature’s beauty while hinting at life’s brevity. At a time when women rarely entered artists’ guilds, Peeters’s achievement is all the more remarkable.