Bouquet of Flowers and Fruit with Blue Ribbon

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

c. 1680

Maria van Oosterwijck (Dutch, 1630–1693)

This seemingly straightforward scene by Maria van Oosterwijck, one of the few known female painters in the Dutch Republic, in fact depicts a fantastical image. The 11 species of flora, accompanied by a single grasshopper and hung from a nail by a ribbon, do not all blossom in the same season. Additionally, several of these varieties are not indigenous to Northern Europe. The arrangement thus reflects the global markets in which the Dutch participated: the sweet sultan (the orange flower at upper left) would have been imported from Turkey, while the bitter orange (beneath the ribbon at center) originated in the Mediterranean. Oosterwijck was renowned for such paintings of suspended bouquets.

Status: Currently Off View
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Maria van Oosterwijck
Title: Bouquet of Flowers and Fruit with Blue Ribbon
Place: Netherlands (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1675–1685
Medium: Oil on canvas
Inscriptions: Signed lower left: Maria van Oosterwijck
Dimensions: 36 × 28.3 cm (14 1/4 × 11 1/8 in.); Framed: 49.3 × 41.3 × 6.7 cm (19 3/8 × 16 1/4 × 2 5/8 in.)
Credit Line: Rhoades Foundation and Julius Lewis Acquisition Endowment Fund; Josephine and John J. Louis Jr. Endowed Acquisition Fund; C. Harker and Mae Svoboda Rhodes Acquisition Fund; John A. Bross Fund in memory of Louise Smith Bross
Reference Number: 2022.1437
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/264716/manifest.json

Sylvia Mouwes, Drs Solomon Lilian: Old Master Paintings (Amsterdam: Lilian, 1993), np., no. 11 (ill).
Laurentia Ann McIntosh, “Maria van Oosterwyck: The Life and Works of a 17th-Century Dutch Artist,” Ph.D. Diss. (University of Wisconsin Madison, 2010), 150 [cat. 19].
Noud Janssen, “F8. Festoen van bloemen, druiven, sinaasappel en een wijnranksprinkhaan.” Maria van Oosterwijck: Vermaert Konstschilderesse. Accessed August 25, 2022. https://mariavanoosterwijck.nl/oeuvre/bloemstillevens-festoenen-en-guirlandes/f8
Julie Demarle, “A painting by Mélanie de Comoléra acquired by Chicago,” La Tribune de l’Art, Novemebr 6, 2024, ill. 2.
Jacquelyn N. Coutré, Katrin Dyballa, Virginia Treanor, Maureen Warren, and Laurien van der Werff, “A Curatorial Roundtable on Collecting and Presenting Women Artists of the Low Countries,” Journal of Historians of Netherlandish Art 17, no. 1 (2025), 5.
Virginia Treanor and Frederica Van Dam, eds., Unforgettable: Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600–1750, exh. cat. (Hannibal Books; Veurne, Belgium, 2025), 262(ill.), 264, cat. 165.

Washington, D.C., National Museum of Women in the Arts, Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750, Sep. 26, 2025–Jan. 11, 2026, cat. 165; Ghent, Belgium, Museum of Fine Arts, Mar. 7–May 31, 2026 (Washington only).

Probably sold through Jean Chretien Kaller, Frankfurt, Mar. 12, 1764, lot 87 to Benedikt Ludwig Schlund [Schlundt] for 17.3 florins [according to analysis of detailed description in auction catalog and list of known works compiled by McIntosh 2010, cat. 19]. Sold, Hôtel Drouot, Paris, Apr. 24, 1961, lot 122. Sold, Sotheby’s London, Dec. 9, 1992, lot 92, to Salomon Lilian, Amsterdam [this and the following according to email correspondence with Rachel Elwes, Ben Elwes Fine Art, Aug. 26, 2022, in curatorial object file]; sold to a private collection, Amsterdam, 1993 [Mouwes 1993, cat. 11]; consigned to Kunsthandel P. de Boer B.V., Amsterdam, 2018 until at least 2019; returned to private collection, Amsterdam; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2022.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.