Bouquet of Flowers in a Blue Vase

Look for the one sombre flower in this bouquet, a large iris in grey, blue and almost black. It is a mourning iris, and the museum notes that it was rarely painted at all. The plant had reached Europe from the Ottoman lands only in the later 16th century, and around 1608, when Jan Brueghel made this panel, a specimen was a collector's prize. He placed it beneath the brighter tulips and irises, so its dark petals stand out against them. The museum also points to a small change in how he built his bouquets. Here, for the first time, a large rose is crossed by stalks and partly hidden behind another blossom, where in his earlier bouquet in a wooden vessel, in this same room, the flowers are laid out more separately.