A pot with asters and two seed pods

This detailed drawing of asters in a pot was commissioned by the celebrated collector and botanist Agnes Block (1629-1704). Shortly after her husband's death, Block acquired the estate of Vijverhof on the bank of the river Vecht where she established a botanical garden which soon became famous for its rare specimens (including the first edible pineapple in Europe). To record her botanical specimens, she ordered a number of artists, including Herman Saftleven, Johannes Bronkhorst, Maria Sibylla Merian and Merian's daughter Johanna Helena Herolt Graff, to produce detailed scientific drawings of them. As is the case with the present sheet, these drawings aimed to communicate all the known information about a specimen in a single image; here the flowers are shown at various stages of blooming, and at the lower right two of the plant's seed pods are shown. Block described the details of the depicted flower or plant on the verso of each sheet, as in this instance. Another botanical drawing by Henstenburgh, probably also commissioned by Block and also executed in 1685, is in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (inv. RP-T-1948-58).

In total Block commissioned around 400 drawings which she kept in albums. After her death these were bought by Valerius Röver. Two albums with 252 of these drawings were sold in 1736 (see provenance), and the present sheet could well have been part of this group.