Still Life with Bouquet of Flowers and Bird’s Nest before a Park Landscape, 1802

Blatt: 459 x 359 mm

Physical Description: Watercolour and body colour, pen and brush and dark grey ink, black chalk or charcoal

Inventory Number: 2850

Object Number: 2850 Z

Status: Request for presentation in the study room of the Prints and Drawings Department

Texts

About the Work

The demand for splendid flower compositions in the manner of Jan van Huysum only began to wane over the course of the nineteenth century. Until then, a great number of artists imitated the style of that master, who had died in 1749. Willem van Leen’s drawing likewise takes orientation from van Huysum’s compositions, adopting the loose drawing technique the latter had employed above all for preparatory studies. Unlike the earlier artist’s painstakingly executed drawings, however, which can rightfully claim to be masterworks of optical illusion, it expresses a spontaneous artistic virtuosity.