Still life of flowers in a glass vase upon a stone ledge

De Heem's flower still lifes occupy a distinct place within his output, requiring different techniques and compositional approaches from his fruit arrangements. This 1660 work — a bouquet in a glass vase on a stone ledge — employs one of the most common formats for Dutch and Flemish flower painting: the vase of mixed flowers arranged against a plain dark background, each bloom selected to represent a different species and demonstrate the painter's botanical range. The glass vase presents the same technical challenge as any transparent vessel: the viewer must see the water and stems within while the glass itself is rendered only by its reflections and highlights. By 1660 de Heem had been painting flowers for over three decades and his handling of the genre shows the accumulated authority of long practice.

Glass vases in flower paintings require de Heem to render transparency and water simultaneously: the glass itself has no color but bends and reflects light along its rim and edges, while the water within distorts and magnifies the stems visible through it. This dual challenge is solved through precise highlight placement on the glass and careful rendering of how stems appear underwater versus above it.