A Rothschild Brueghel Returns to the Spotlight: Velvet Brueghel's Flowers Star at Frieze Masters 2026
A bunch of flowers that could never have bloomed at the same time, painted on an oak panel in Antwerp more than four hundred years ago, is one of the stars of London’s art week. Frieze Masters opens in Regent’s Park on 14 October 2026, and on the Hauser & Wirth stand Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Still Life of Flowers in a Stoneware Vase, painted around 1607–08, hangs beside a brand-new canvas by the British painter Flora Yukhnovich, made in direct response to it. Behind the flowers lies a darker story: a Rothschild picture taken in 1939, kept in Prague for decades and returned to the family only in 2016.
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What: Jan Brueghel the Elder’s Still Life of Flowers in a Stoneware Vase (c. 1607–08), oil on panel, 67 × 51 cm
Where: Hauser & Wirth, Booth D01, Frieze Masters, Regent’s Park, London
When: 14–18 October 2026 (preview 14 October, public from 15 October)
Who: Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568–1625), shown with a new painting by Flora Yukhnovich
Section: Art Market
What is on show
Frieze Masters, now in its fourteenth edition, brings together around 140 galleries from more than 30 countries, with everything from Egyptian antiquities to modern British painting. ArtHistory.News singles out the Brueghel as one of the most beautiful pictures at the fair: irises, tulips, roses, fritillaries and other blooms rendered with botanical precision on a panel measuring 67 by 51 centimetres. Hauser & Wirth says Yukhnovich’s new work was made “in direct response to and shown alongside” the Flemish painting, setting up a dialogue between a Rococo-loving contemporary painter and the man who helped invent the flower piece.
Elsewhere at the fair, Colnaghi brings a full-length Van Dyck Portrait of a Nobleman, traditionally identified as Paolo Giordano Orsini, Duke of Bracciano, and a Ribera Elderly Woman with a Tambourine; Offer Waterman shows Stanley Spencer’s Washing Up (1935), once owned by Kenneth Clark; and Benappi Fine Art presents a recently rediscovered St Michael the Archangel by Antoine de Lonhy.
From the Rothschilds to Prague and back
The painting’s history is what makes it more than a pretty bouquet. It belonged to Baron Alphonse von Rothschild and hung at the family castle of Schillersdorf in Silesia. According to the Institute of Art and Law, a forced transfer in the Nazi period removed it from the collection in 1939, and it ended up in the National Gallery in Prague. It stayed there until 2016, when a settlement with the Rothschild heirs returned it to the family. That July it sold at Sotheby’s London for £3.8 million, within its estimate of £3–5 million. Its asking price at Frieze has not been published.
Why it matters
Restituted pictures often vanish back into private hands, so a fair stand is one of the few chances the public gets to see them. The pairing with Yukhnovich also says something about the market: dealers increasingly use contemporary painters to make Old Masters feel current to younger collectors. Whether that is clever curating or a sales tactic, it puts a four-century-old still life in front of people who might never visit a museum’s Flemish rooms.
The painting behind the story
Jan Brueghel, son of Pieter Bruegel the Elder, was nicknamed “Velvet” Brueghel for his silky finish. Around 1605 he began painting bouquets as independent pictures, one of the first artists in Europe to do so. He boasted of travelling to see rare flowers in person rather than copying them from prints, yet his vases mix spring bulbs with summer roses: no real arrangement could ever look like this. The bouquet is an ideal garden, a catalogue of nature’s riches, and often a quiet reminder that beauty fades. The Flowers in a Basket and a Vase of 1615 in Washington shows the same ambition a few years later, with blooms tumbling from a basket across the table. For more Flemish painting, explore the Baroque paintings we’ve explained.
Hang Jan Brueghel’s Flowers in a Basket and a Vase as a print, canvas or poster from the Sapiens Verbum print shop. The museum image above and the commercial print are separate.
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💬 Over to you: Does pairing an Old Master with a new contemporary painting help you see it with fresh eyes, or does it distract from the original? Tell us in the comments.
Sources
- ArtHistory.News: From Stanley Spencer to Van Dyck and Brueghel, Frieze Masters 2026 Opens in London, 13 October 2026
- Hauser & Wirth: Frieze Masters 2026, Booth D01
- Institute of Art and Law: Restituted Brueghel sold at Sotheby’s, July 2016
- Sotheby’s: Old Master & British Paintings Evening Sale, lot 11, Jan Brueghel the Elder, 6 July 2016
- National Gallery of Art: Jan Brueghel the Elder, Flowers in a Basket and a Vase, 1615
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