Western Europe experienced an explosion of new plant material during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. Within this period, twenty times more plants came under cultivation in Europe than in the previous two millennia, vastly enriching garden culture and transforming not only the appearance of the garden but also the ways in which the artist looked at and portrayed plants. Some new species were introduced from Africa and from the voyages of discovery to the New World. Other species arrived from the East after peace was established between the Ottoman Empire and the Holy Roman Empire in the mid-sixteenth century.

Scholars and plant collectors (known as ‘florists’) developed a fervent interest in the acclimatisation and cultivation of these non-native species. This led to the foundation of botanic gardens, the development of the science of botany and the birth of botanical illustration. Illustrated herbals proliferated and a new phenomenon, the ‘florilegium’, or flower book, became popular. The Dutch Republic was the centre of passionate new interest in plant studies, collecting and cultivation. In response, the Dutch school of flower painters developed a new genre, the floral still life.