Vase of Flowers

The signed work of Ernst Stuven is one of a group of paintings copying the flower arrangement by Jan Davidsz. de Heem (1606-1683/84) from the piece Flowers in a Landscape with a Stream in the Prince of Liechtenstein Collection in Vaduz. De Heem’s paintings with such themes were highly valued and amply imitated. In the 1660s, Jan Davidsz. de Heem painted views of forest interiors with luxuriant vegetation, small animals and flowers. His oeuvre also inspired Abraham Mignon and Rachel Ruysch. Stuven’s painting seems to draw specifically from Rachel Ruysch’s compositions that reflect de Heem’s work. Copying individual motifs from paintings was a common practice of every artist and only added to the art collector’s whetted interest in specific executions of certain compositions. Ernst Stuven was a student of Georg Hinz in Hamburg, but in 1675 he settled in Amsterdam. He followed Willem van Aelst and later Abraham Mignon in an effort to achieve the most natural arrangement of flowers in a vase.