When the distinguished Swedish art historian Ingvar Bergström published his landmark study Dutch Still-Life Painting in the Seventeenth Century in 1756, he devoted particular attention to the flourishing genre of flower painting. Among the many masters who contributed to this field, there was, in Bergström’s eyes, one artist who towered above all others: Jan van Huysum. With no hesitation, Bergström hailed him as “the greatest of all,” a verdict that has echoed through generations of art scholarship.

Yet Van Huysum’s reputation was not a modern rediscovery. During his own lifetime, his name was already synonymous with brilliance. Born in Amsterdam on April 15, 1682, and trained by his father, Justus van Huysum the Elder, he inherited the family tradition of floral painting but carried it into unprecedented territory. Whereas his father’s works were competent, Jan’s were revolutionary. His contemporaries hailed him as “the phoenix of all flower painters” — a title that reflected both his unrivaled technical virtuosity and the near-mythical aura that surrounded him.

What set Van Huysum apart was his insistence on truth to nature. Unlike many Dutch still-life specialists who relied on pattern books, repeated motifs, or workshop formulas, he demanded direct observation. His devotion to accuracy bordered on the obsessive. In one surviving letter, he confessed to a patron that her painting would be delayed an entire year because he could not obtain a yellow rose at the exact stage of bloom required to complete the composition. This extraordinary patience and fidelity gave his canvases a freshness and vitality unmatched by his peers, as though each blossom had just been plucked from the garden and laid tenderly on the canvas.

Although he occasionally ventured into landscapes and mythological subjects, it was in his flower pieces that Van Huysum found his true voice. His bouquets, seemingly spontaneous yet intricately designed, contained flowers from all seasons of the year, depicted at various stages of life: buds beginning to unfurl, blossoms in radiant bloom, petals beginning to wither. In this cycle of growth and decay, Van Huysum offered not only a dazzling display of abundance but also a meditation on transience. His paintings dazzled the senses with their color, texture, and illusionistic brilliance, while at the same time prompting reflection on the fleeting nature of earthly beauty. He underscored this moral dimension by inscribing a biblical verse on one of his vases: “Consider the lilies of the field, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.” Through such works, Van Huysum combined delight with instruction, elevating flower painting into a realm that was both aesthetic and philosophical.

His fame spread rapidly across Europe. His canvases, radiant with color and overflowing with detail, became coveted trophies among the most powerful patrons of the eighteenth century. The Elector of Saxony, Britain’s prime minister, the dukes of Orléans and Mecklenburg, and the kings of Poland and Prussia all competed to own his paintings. They were not mere decorations but emblems of taste and prestige, proudly displayed in palaces and private collections. The prices reflected this fevered demand: while a Rembrandt might be acquired for a few hundred guilders, Van Huysum’s flower pieces fetched more than a thousand, and on occasion five times as much. Even after his death in 1749 at the age of sixty-six, his works continued to command record-breaking sums, with one particularly admired canvas selling for nearly four times his lifetime high — an unprecedented figure that confirmed his status as the most celebrated flower painter of his age.

Beyond his paintings, Van Huysum was also a skilled draftsman. His drawings, ranging from swift studies of individual blossoms to carefully finished sheets, reveal the rigor of his observation and the careful planning that lay beneath the apparent naturalness of his bouquets. Many functioned as preparatory studies, while others were prized as works of art in their own right. Together they demonstrate the intellectual discipline and artistry that sustained his brilliance.

Van Huysum spent his entire life in Amsterdam, cultivating his vision in the city’s artistic milieu yet producing works that reached the farthest courts of Europe. At his death, he left behind not only a corpus of dazzling canvases but also a standard of excellence that shaped the future of still-life painting. To this day, his works retain their power to astonish: their blossoms remain luminous, their symbolism resonant, their beauty capable of silencing even the most critical eye.

That legacy continues into the present. On 1 July 2025, during Christie’s Classic Week, the auction house will present an extraordinary pair of Van Huysum’s paintings — the last known works of his career. These canvases encapsulate the dazzling refinement of his mature style and stand as the triumphant culmination of decades of artistic mastery. Their reappearance is more than an event in the market; it is the return of two masterpieces that illuminate the career of a painter whom Bergström, and history itself, rightly remembered as the greatest flower painter of them all.

Bouquet of Spring Flowers in a Terracotta Vase, 1721

Vase of Flowers, 1722

Still Life with Flowers and Fruit, 1715

Vase of Flowers, 1760