Chain of Flowers, which opens at the castle museum’s art gallery on Saturday (May 16) is the work of Cambridge-based artist Miranda Boulton.
In preparing this exhibition, Ms Boulton researched the influential British still life painters Emily Stannard (1802-1885) and her niece Eloise Stannard (1829-1915), who were both prominent members of the Norwich Society of Artists.
Also known as the Norwich School, the society was one of the biggest 19th century British art movements outside of London, created by painters John Crome and Robert Ladbrooke as a club where artists could meet to discuss ideas and concepts.
During the 1820s, Emily Stannard travelled to the Netherlands to study the paintings of Jan Van Huysum, receiving permission to copy his work at Trippon House, now the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Ms Boulton recently retraced that journey, examining Van Huysum’s and other related works at the Rijksmuseum.
Following that trip, she created an initial series of oil paintings on paper before moving to canvas, responding to the paintings she saw.
In direct contrast to the highly detailed style of the 17th-century Dutch Golden Age of Painting, she uses thick impasto oil paint, layered and pushed around the canvas and often uses spray paint as well.
She said: “There is beautiful synergy to this project, women artists from a similar location, two centuries apart, responding to the same influences expressed through the language of flowers and paint.”
Dr Giorgia Bottinelli, curator of art at Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, said: “I was utterly spellbound by her paintings from the minute I saw them in her studio and am thrilled to be able to share them with our audiences.”
The exhibition is on show in the Colman Project Space at the museum until December 6.
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