Flowers in a Rummer with a Tulip at the Top

A rummer — a tall German-style drinking glass with a wide bowl — was an unusual choice of vessel for a floral still life, and Bosschaert's 1619 depiction of one crowned by a tulip represents a playful variation within his otherwise formulaic practice. Tulips occupied a special place in the Dutch imagination: introduced from Ottoman Turkey via Vienna in the mid-sixteenth century, they were still exotic and expensive in 1619, some years before the speculative Tulip Mania that peaked in 1636-37. Placing a single tulip at the summit of the arrangement confers it the status of the composition's culminating jewel. The rummer form, associated with convivial drinking, introduces an unexpected domestic warmth to the otherwise formal still life tradition. The work is held by Richard Green Fine Paintings in London, one of the leading dealers in Old Master and Victorian art, indicating the continued market strength of Bosschaert's work among private collectors well into the modern era.

Oil on panel allows fine detail rendering of the rummer's thick glass walls, which distort the stems within while remaining largely transparent above the waterline. The tulip crowning the arrangement required delicate layering of striated color washes to capture its streaked petals, a characteristic of the period's prized 'broken' tulip varieties caused by mosaic virus.