Flowers in a Glass Vase with Pomegranates on a Marble Balustrade

From 1708 Rachel Ruysch drew a salary from Johann Wilhelm, Elector Palatine, at Dusseldorf, on terms almost no painter of the time was offered. She stayed in Amsterdam with her family and sent him roughly one picture a year. This canvas carries the date 1715 at the lower left, near the end of that arrangement, which ended when the Elector died the following June. His wife was Anna Maria Luisa de' Medici, daughter of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, and he made a point of sending examples of Ruysch's work to her family's court in Florence. This one took another road there entirely. A dealer named Artaria offered it to Grand Duke Ferdinand III in October 1822 and the gallery bought it the next year, together with the forest piece hanging beside it.