Margareta Haverman

A Vase of Flowers, 1716. Margareta Haverman. Oil on wood. Purchase, 1871.
Because hardly any women artists had access to nude models, a number of them became still life specialists. Haverman studied with the notoriously secretive flower painter Jan van Huysum and later gained admission to the Royal Academy in Paris, from which she was soon expelled for unknown reasons. The artist’s skill is on full display in this magnificent arrangement of flowers and fruit, in which she used innovative pigments such as Prussian blue. Over time, the organic yellow lake pigment has faded, resulting in the present blue appearance of the leaves. Acquired in 1871, this is the sole painting in the collection by an early modern Dutch woman.