Roses in a Glass Vase

The bouquets in most seventeenth-century floral still lifes are made up of many different kinds of flowers, but for this small painting Van Hulsdonck selected only roses, including a sweet briar at the top left. As a result, it seems far more natural than other floral still lifes. It has also been painted with great precision, from the water droplets on the leaves to the cockchafer beetle in the bottom right-hand corner.

Van Hulsdonck worked in Antwerp, but trained in Middelburg, probably under Ambrosius Bosschaert who was specialised in flower still lifes.