Flowers in a Bowl

Brueghel's own letters record how he built a picture like this. He travelled to where particular flowers grew and waited for each species to come into bloom, so an arrangement that looks like one morning's cutting took a year to assemble. Carnations, several kinds of rose, narcissi and anemones are crowded into a scalloped ceramic basin standing on a table, more than it will hold, and some have spilled onto the wood. Small living things are worked in among them, which is what gives the whole thing its air of being real. A ladybird sits on a white carnation, a butterfly has landed on a twig at the upper left, and a dragonfly is going after nectar on the other side. The panel was painted in 1615. A sprig of orange blossom lies right at the front of the table, outside the basin altogether.