Still Life with Flowers by Jan van Huysum

One of the most technically astonishing flower paintings in the Rijksmuseum, and one most visitors walk past. Jan van Huysum's Still Life with Flowers (1723) marks the moment Dutch painting left the stern Golden Age behind and embraced the decorative pleasures of the Rococo.

Look closely at the dewdrops on the petals. Van Huysum's contemporaries said you could see crawling ants on his flowers without a magnifying glass. The butterfly on the crown imperial looks ready to take wing. Even the bird's nest tucked in the lower corner, with its fragile eggs, is rendered with the same obsessive fidelity as the gilded vase.

Van Huysum guarded his techniques fiercely. He forbade even his own brothers from entering his studio so no one could learn how he achieved such translucency and precision. His flower pieces sold for extraordinary sums and were collected across Europe.

Next time you are at the Rijksmuseum, look for the one where the dewdrops hold their own light.