Scene in a Formal Garden,

1676

De Jongh presents a scene of fashionable life in a garden outside a grand country house. Slender patches of sunlight spill in through the doorway at left, illuminating the face of a kneeling gardener at right. The flowers and citrus tree reflect a botanical trade that extended well beyond the borders of the Dutch Republic, where bulbs, seeds, and cuttings gathered from around the globe could fetch great prices, and private gardens such as this became sites of botanical cultivation and study. The garden’s more extravagant plants contrast with the endemic cauliflower and cabbage sold by the woman at left, whose humble dress and bare feet likewise contrast with the wealth of her young customer and the elite women at right. The wheelbarrow of wilting flowers at center hints at the artifice and impermanence of the well-manicured botanical beauty on display.