Michel de Bouillon (Ere, near Tournai before 1638-1674 ?)

Michel de Bouillon painted religious subjects and interior scenes, but is most noted for his still lifes of fruit and flowers. Though his life and career remain relatively obscure, in 1638 he is documented as a master in Ere, a small village near Tournai, and he later worked in France until 1668. In this composition, the wide array of flowers brimming from the low vase and roemer, including splendid variegated poppies and tulips, take inspiration from seventeenth-century Dutch still life painters such as Balthasar van der Ast and Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder. The relief in the upper left likely reproduces a now-untraced bas-relief by Francois Duquesnoy, a Flemish sculptor known for his playful depictions of groupings of putti.