Born in Germany, Jakob Marell belonged to the illustrious circle of seventeenth-century still life painters working in Frankfurt. The city had become a place of sanctuary for large numbers of refugees displaced from their homes in the Netherlands after the Reformation. As an indirect consequence of this, Frankfurt’s artistic community gained exposure to forms established by Netherlandish painters, such as that found in the present work: a stoneware vase, filled with tulips, irises, lilies, violets and other flowers in a carefully balanced arrangement. Marrel initially trained in the city in the workshop of Georg Flegel (c. 1565-1638), whose characteristic precision in rendering detail, and interest in conveying texture and contrasts of light and dark, are easily discernible in his pupil’s work.

In the early 1630s, Marell moved to Utrecht, where his work quickly assumed influences from the city’s leading flower and still life painter Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger (1609-1645), an artist known for his gem-like flower paintings. Marell also looked to the work of Roelant Savery (1576-1639), who was known for the dynamism, dramatic shadows and plasticity of his still life paintings. Through this complex network of influences, Marell adopted various elements from across his artistic milieu. Motifs like the lizard and snail in the present work, for example, show Savery’s influence, while the precise, scientific observation of the blooms in the vase clearly betray the influence of Bosschaert.