Editing Ambrosius Bosschaert

{{short description|Dutch painter and art dealer}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=April 2025}}
{{Infobox artist
| name          = Ambrosius Bosschaert
| image         = Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder (Dutch - Flower Still Life - Google Art Project.jpg
| image_size     = 300px
| alt           =
| caption       = ''Still-Life of Flowers'', 1614, [[J. Paul Getty Museum]], Los Angeles. 
| birth_name     =
| birth_date     = 18 January 1573
| birth_place    = Antwerp
| death_date     = {{death year and age|1621|1573}}
| death_place    = The Hague
| nationality   = Dutch and [[Flemish people|Flemish]]
| field         = [[Painting]]
| training      =
| movement      = [[Baroque]]
| works         =
| patrons       =
| influenced by =
| influenced    =
| awards        =
}}
'''Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder''' (18 January 1573 &ndash; 1621) was a Flemish-born Dutch [[still life]] [[Painting|painter]] and art dealer.<ref name=RKD>[https://web.archive.org/web/20160305130947/https://rkd.nl/en/explore/artists/11147 Ambrosius Bosschaert] at [[The Netherlands Institute for Art History]]</ref> He is recognised as one of the earliest painters who created floral still lifes as an independent genre.<ref name=ox>[https://doi.org/10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T010306 Irene Haberland, ''Bosschaert family''] at Oxford Art Online</ref> He founded a dynasty of painters who continued his style of floral and fruit painting and turned [[Middelburg, Zeeland|Middelburg]] into the leading centre for flower painting in the Dutch Republic.<ref name=ox/><ref name=thus>{{Cite web|title=Chinese Vase with Flowers, Shell and Insects|url=https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/bosschaert-i-ambrosius/chinese-vase-flowers-shell-and-insects|access-date=7 June 2020|website=Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza|language=en}}</ref>

==Biography==
[[File:Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder - Still-Life with flowers - Google Art Project.jpg|left|thumb|''Still-Life with flowers'', 1618, [[Hallwyl Museum]], Stockholm.]]

He was born in Antwerp, where he started his career, but he spent most of it in [[Middelburg, Zeeland|Middelburg]] (1587&ndash;1613), where he moved with his family because of the threat of religious persecution. He specialized in painting [[still life]]s with flowers, which he signed with the monogram AB (the B in the A).<ref name=RKD/> At the age of twenty-one, he joined the city's [[Guild of Saint Luke]] and later became dean.<ref name=RKD/> Not long after, Bosschaert married and established himself as a leading figure in the fashionable floral painting genre.

He had three sons who all became flower painters: [[Ambrosius Bosschaert II|Ambrosius II]], [[Johannes Bosschaert|Johannes]] and [[Abraham Bosschaert|Abraham]]. His brother-in-law [[Balthasar van der Ast]] also lived and worked in his workshop and accompanied him on his travels. Bosschaert later worked in Amsterdam (1614), [[Bergen op Zoom]] (1615&ndash;1616), [[Utrecht]] (1616&ndash;1619), and [[Breda]] (1619).<ref name=RKD/> In 1619 when he moved to Utrecht, his brother-in-law van der Ast entered the Utrecht Guild of St. Luke, where the renowned painter [[Abraham Bloemaert]] had just become dean. The painter [[Roelandt Savery]] (1576–1639) entered the St. Luke's guild in Utrecht at about the same time. Savery had considerable influence on the Bosschaert dynasty.<ref name=RKD/>

After Bosschaert died in The Hague while on commission there for a flower piece, Balthasar van der Ast took over his workshop and pupils in Middelburg.<ref name=RKD/>

==Style==

[[Image:Bosschaert d. Ä. Ambrosius 001.jpg|thumb|250px|''Vase of flowers in a window'', 1618, [[Mauritshuis]], The Hague.]]

His bouquets were painted symmetrically and with scientific accuracy in small dimensions and normally on copper. They sometimes included symbolic and religious meanings. At the time of his death, Bosschaert was working on an important commission in the Hague.<ref name=RKD/> That piece is now in the collection in Stockholm.<ref name=RKD/><ref>[https://rkd.nl/en/explore/images/122783 Link to Stockholm piece] in the RKD</ref>

Bosschaert was one of the first artists to specialize in flower still life painting as a stand-alone subject. He started a tradition of painting detailed flower bouquets, which typically included tulips and roses, and inspired the genre of [[Dutch flower painting]]. Thanks to the booming seventeenth-century Dutch art market, he became highly successful, as the inscription on one of his paintings attests.<ref>[http://www.nga.gov/feature/artnation/still_life/bosschaert_1.shtm ''Bouquet of Flowers in a Glass Vase'', the painting with inscription] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121010221730/http://www.nga.gov/feature/artnation/still_life/bosschaert_1.shtm |date=10 October 2012 }} at the National Gallery</ref> His works commanded high prices although he never achieved the level of prestige of [[Jan Brueghel the Elder]], the Antwerp master who contributed to the floral genre.<ref name=thus/>

===Legacy===
His sons and his pupil and brother-in-law, Balthasar van der Ast, were among those to uphold the Bosschaert dynasty which continued until the mid-17th century.

It may not be a coincidence that this trend coincided with a [[Tulip mania|national obsession with exotic flowers]] which made flower portraits highly sought after.

Although he was highly in demand, he did not create many pieces because he was also employed as an art dealer.

==References==
{{reflist}}

== Bibliography ==
{{refbegin}}
* {{cite thesis |last1=Pennisi |first1=Meghan Siobhan Wilson |title=The flower still -life painting of Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder in Middelburg, ca. 1600–1620 |date=2007 |publisher=Department of Art History, Northwestern University |location=Evanston, Illinois |url=https://www.proquest.com/openview/281af1909a24efe146c0677a3660ca8b/1?pq-origsite=gscholar&cbl=18750|type=PhD thesis}}
* {{cite web|last1=Wheelock|first1=Arthur K.|title=Bosschaert, Ambrosius Dutch, 1573–1621|url=https://www.nga.gov/Collection/artist-info.18262.pdf |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20221009/https://www.nga.gov/Collection/artist-info.18262.pdf |archive-date=2022-10-09 |url-status=live|website=Collection: Artists|publisher=[[National Gallery of Art]]|access-date=12 November 2017|date=24 April 2014}}
* {{cite encyclopedia | encyclopedia=Winkler Prins encyclopedia| edition=8 | year=1975 | article=Bosschaert de Oudere, Ambrosius}}
* {{cite journal |last1=Stechow |first1=Wolfgang |title=Ambrosius Bosschaert: Still Life |journal=The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art |date=1966 |volume=53 |issue=3 |pages=61–65 |jstor=25152092 }}
{{refend}}

== External links ==
*{{Commons-inline|Category:Ambrosius Bosschaert (I)|Ambrosius Bosschaert (I)}}

{{Authority control (arts)}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bosschaert, Ambrosius}}
[[Category:1573 births]]
[[Category:1621 deaths]]
[[Category:Flemish Baroque painters]]
[[Category:Dutch flower artists]]
[[Category:Dutch Golden Age painters]]
[[Category:Dutch male painters]]
[[Category:Painters from Antwerp]]
[[Category:Painters from Middelburg]]
[[Category:Dutch still life painters]]
[[Category:Flemish still life painters]]