Large Bouquet of Flowers

Look at the far left edge of this bouquet. A red Turk's cap lily, the martagon, has been squeezed in there between a white snowball viburnum and a white lily, with hardly any room to open. The museum points to exactly that detail. The composition follows Brueghel's own large bouquet in a wooden vessel, now in Vienna, and here, short of space, the painter pushed the flower into a gap. Weaknesses of execution like this are why the museum gives the panel to his workshop. It also notes that flowers first appeared in painting mainly within religious scenes, and only in the course of the 16th century did a bouquet become a subject in its own right, with Brueghel among its leading painters. This oak panel, painted around 1606 or 1607, measures about 125 by 96 centimetres and hangs in Room XI.