Jan Frans van Dael: a specialist in floral still lifes at the end of the 18th, beginning of the 19th century, unmistakably a Flemish painter. Today, his flower still lifes fetch prices of up to 350,000 euros at auction - and van Dael was also extremely successful during his lifetime. Despite the uncertain circumstances around him. Born in Antwerp in 1764, he grew up in a former cosmopolitan city, in a state of rapid decline, and in the midst of unclear governmental conditions. The northern Dutch provinces, now the Netherlands, had fought for independence; the southern provinces, now Belgian Flanders, belonged first to the Spanish, then to the Austrian Habsburg Empire. From 1795, Flanders and Antwerp fell to France, then it was part of the United Kingdom of the Netherlands and finally of the newly founded Belgium. One felt connected to the northern Netherlands, but at the same time it was also part of the French world.

Jan Frans van Dael, born in Antwerp in 1764, died in Paris in 1840. From 1786 lived in Paris, and very successfully, but was still part of the Flemish culture, worked both in the Academy of Antwerp and Amsterdam, exhibited in the Dutch as well as in the Parisian salons. France, Paris from 1786 - no less uncertain times: Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, 1789-1799 French Revolution, Napoleon Bonaparte, Restoration and July Revolution and July Monarchy.

And in all the upheavals and uncertainties: van Dael's floral still life. Actually already out of time, because still lifes had their great time - not only in the Netherlands - in the 16th and 17th centuries. The heyday of flower still lifes was related not only to the artistic achievements of perspective and realistic depiction, but also to increasing interest in natural history. Still lifes were often full of symbolic, religious, and moral meanings - for example, the rose was a symbol of Mary, the lily a symbol of purity, and flowers overall symbols of transience. Despite obvious realism, van Dael's still lifes do not try to create the illusion of being reality itself, do not try to deceive the viewer like the trompe-l'oeil ("eye deception"): Everything seems "real" and yet his paintings do not disguise the fact that they are paintings, and would not reach into the picture to take a flower from the vase. Nor are they natural history paintings, for they do not foreground functions or structures of flowers, and they colorfully arrange flowers from all seasons and all origins. In a bouquet hyacinth, feather carnation, rose, poppy, marigold, primrose, foxglove ... Van Dael's floral still lifes are above all beautiful and decorative. Because even the symbolic charge of still life has moved into the background with him - although it is still present for the knowledgeable and accurate viewer. And it is precisely these breaks in the "merely beautiful" pictures that probably account for the appeal of the flower still lifes that can still be felt today: First of all, like most still lifes, they are not still, for there are butterflies buzzing around the blossoms, for example. And then, on closer inspection, they are not clearly merely decorative. Some flowers are wilted, the flower heads droop, fallen petals lie next to the vase, enclosed bunches are overripe, burst open and sometimes rotten. Can there be no such thing as pure beauty?