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Paeonies (Paeonia officinalis)

Johann Jakob Walther

1660

watercolor

From the collection of Victoria and Albert Museum

Baroque Dutch Golden Age Baroque Floral Paeonia

Dominant colour

Paeonies (Paeonia officinalis) is a 1660 watercolor by Johann Jakob Walther, a Baroque work, depicting Paeonia, held at Victoria and Albert Museum.

Who painted this?: Johann Jakob Walther
When & what style?: 1660 · Baroque
Where can I see it?: Victoria and Albert Museum

About this work

This is a watercolour work titled Paeonies. It's a floral piece. The 'Nassau Florilegium' was a manuscript florilegium compiled by Johann Jakob Walther. It recorded plants in a garden, including exotic and rare ones. This was a fashionable thing to do among the wealthy back then. To learn more about the style of this piece, look up the movement: Baroque.

The story of this work

Overview

Johann Jakob Walther’s *Paeonies (Paeonia officinalis)* is part of the *Nassau Florilegium*, a two-volume watercolor manuscript created between 1650 and 1670 for Count Johannes of Nassau. The illustration depicts the peony with exaggeratedly slender stems, arranged to isolate the flower and emphasize its upright form despite its natural bushy growth. The composition reflects the formal, structured planting style of seventeenth-century gardens, where individual specimens were displayed in isolation. The work belongs to a florilegium documenting rare plants cultivated in the Count’s garden at…

Read the full account in the museum source.