Vase of Flowers in a flower pot and a bird's nest on a marble slab

Jan van Huysum is the most notable member of the Van Huysum family of artists working in Dutch Golden Age of the 17th and 18th centuries; "by common consent, Jan van Huysum has been held to be the best painter of flowers." Trained in decoration from a young age, he "gradually developed an execution of details of the utmost beauty and finish" creating "wonderful flower pieces whereon drops of water and crawling ants could be seen without a magnifying glass."

Vase of Flowers is a painting by the Dutch artist Jan van Huysum. The painting is a still life and depicts a vase of late spring flowers, including roses and iris. The painting was in the collection of the Galleria Palatina in Palazzo Pitti in Florence until its 1943 theft by the retreating Wehrmacht following the Allied invasion of Italy in 1943. The painting had been bought by Grand Duke Leopoldo II for his collection in 1824. An interest in botany arose in Holland nearing the end of the 1500s and caused an increase in the demand for floral still lifes.