The traditional attribution of this picture to Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder has recently been confirmed by Fred G. Meijer, upon first-hand inspection. He dates it to the years shortly after 1610, when Bosschaert was still in Middelburg. It is unusual in Bosschaert's œuvre in the simplicity of its arrangement of only four blooms of tulips, and may thus appear unfamiliar, but other such pictures by him are known. A good example is the even smaller picture on copper, signed in monogram, depicting four tulips in a glass vase, in the Bredius Museum, The Hague, which Bol dated to the last years of Bosschaert's Middelburg period, before 1615.¹ The red-and-white tulip to the left of the present composition is almost identical to one found in an Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder flower piece dated 1614 in The Getty Museum.²

On the basis of an old photograph, Laurens Bol (see Literature) included this picture in a small group of three works that he attributed to Hans (Johannes) van der Ast, brother of Balthasar, on the basis of the monogram I.V.A. that appears on one of them.³ The other unsigned picture from this group however, depicting four tulips in a glass vase, is very close in style and composition to the Bredius picture: one of the tulips is almost identical, another nearly so, and the glass vase is identical.⁴ Furthermore the handling of the leaves emerging from the vase, and the chalky white ledge, are very similar to both the Bredius picture and the present one, and all three pictures are surely by the same hand. The monogrammed picture, though Bosschaertian in its conception, is otherwise quite different.⁵

Please note that the painting is sold framed but will be displayed in an Italian, circa 1600, fruitwood cassetta frame on a half lapped pine back frame, with original winged putto and a brass hanging hook, as illustrated below. The display frame is loaned from Arnold Wiggins and Sons; should you wish to purchase it please contact grace.collier@sothebys.com

¹ A. Blankert, Museum Bredius. Catalogue van de Schilderijen en tekeningen, Zwolle 1991, pp. 52–53, no. 20, reproduced in colour p. 83

² http://www.getty.edu/art/collects ion/artists/839/ambrosius-bosschaert-the-elder-dutch-1573-1621/

³ Bol 1982, reproduced fig. 8

⁴ Bol 1982, reproduced fig. 9. Fred Meijer has kindly pointed out (email, 23 June 2020) that this picture, certainly by Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder, is very close to the present work.

⁵ Fred Meijer (email, 6th July 2020) has kindly endorsed this view.