Antwerp 1573 – The Hague 1621

The first painter to dedicate himself solely to painting bouquets, Ambrosius Bosschaert played a leading role in flower painting in the 17th century. Born in Protestant Antwerp in 1573, he left his home town for Middelburg where he became a member of the Guild of Saint Luke in 1594. Later, he went to Bergen-op-Zoom then Utrecht in 1615, followed by Breda in 1619. He died in The Hague in 1621 while working on a commission for Maurice, Prince of Orange. After his death, his sons continued his work. Bosschaert's brother-in-law, Balthazar van der Ast, who was his pupil from 1609 to 1615, witnessed the advent of the master of the brilliant Middelburg School. The charm of his works and their inventive design are based on his sensitive approach to nature, pushed to an extreme degree of perfection and poetry. Fundamental to the development of a genre, Bosschaert's works mark the end of 20 years of prolific explorations into flower painting, beginning circa 1600 with the works of Roelandt Savery, Joris Hoefnagel and Jan Brueghel the Elder.