Narcissi, Periwinkle and Violets in a Ewer

In 1562 flowers were rarely painted for their own sake. The flower piece became a popular subject in Dutch and Flemish painting only in the following century, so this small panel by Ludger tom Ring, 35 centimetres high, came decades before the fashion. A tall ewer holds a posy of narcissi, violets and periwinkle, and a few loose blooms and a sprig of rue lie on the table. His signature on the belly of the ewer has worn away, and only fragments of the letters remain.

The periwinkle flowers were once purple-blue. Over the centuries the blue pigment has faded, and what we see now is the orange-brown layer painted underneath. Since 2015 the panel has been on long-term loan to the museum from the Friends of the Mauritshuis, who bought it that year at auction in New York.