Resting on a stone base, an openwork wicker basket full of flowers is the subject of this painting. The flowers represent an enormous variety of species, enabling a notably rich range of colours and forms, even when the entire arrangement is structured symmetrically. Among the manifold varieties are lilies, tulips, hydrangeas, roses, anemones and carnations, some of which -like the tulips- would have been costly specimens associated with a world of luxury and sophistication. Some of the flowers that have not been incorporated in the arrangement lie on the stone surface, as if the basket had just been prepared and the flowers only recently cut. This sensation of freshness and vitality is emphasised by the presence of numerous animals -primarily insects, such as the bees and butterflies that flit about the flowers. Such insects were a common motif in such compositions, although they are perhaps more abundantly represented here than was usual. In addition to insect life, two small lizards or newts crawl towards the basket, which adds even greater liveliness to this painting full of colour and animation. On the front of the stone pedestal, an inscription reveals the identity of the artist as Juan de Arellano, though such a signature is not essential to identify the work as his, for its composition and style are unmistakable. Arellano was the greatest painter of flowers active in Madrid in the second half of the seventeenth century. For several decades, the still lifes desired by the court had most commonly depicted foodstuffs or manufactured objects. An important shift in taste in the 1650s led to an intensified demand for paintings of flower arrangements, to the detriment of other subjects, and it was due to this that Arellano´s fame grew. Arellano´s importance as a flower painter is indicated by the significant number of signed works and their presence in prominent collections from the period, in some cases even in prestigious religious settings such as the chapel of Our Lady of Good Counsel (Nuestra Señora del Buen Consejo) in Madrid. The fact that Antonio Palomino included Arellano in his compilation of biographies of major painters (1724) likewise provides testimony of this artist´s prestige. That Palomino considered a painter of flowers worthy of attention is particularly significant, for the writer held a classicising prejudice against the still-life genre. Of Arellano, he claimed that no other Spaniard surpassed him in eminence with regard to this skill and declared that his beginnings as a painter of flowers were connected to Mario Nuzzi (1603-73), an important Italian artist who specialised in this sort of composition. Some of Nuzzi´s works hung in the Royal Collections and in the palaces of Spanish aristocrats. According to Palomino, after starting out by copying works by Nuzzi, Arellano went on to depict flowers from life. In contrast to Nuzzi´s generally more dynamic and complex compositions, Arellano created works with a clear formal structure, in which the central placement of a basket or glass vase imposed a deliberate symmetry, and he typically placed these arrangements atop a stone base, something common in Spanish still lifes since the 1620s. He also typically created these works in pairs (as in this case) and, in the composition of each painting, he would take into account the features of its pendant. These general characteristics continued to prevail in the work of subsequent painters of flowers, for after Arellano there were several artists who followed his path, among them his son-in-law, Bartolomé Pérez (1634-93) (Text drawn from Portús, J.: Portrait of Spain. Masterpieces from the Prado, Queensland Art Gallery-Art Exhibitions Australia, 2012, p. 166).