"Still Life with Flowers and Butterflies," Maria van Oosterwijck, 1668.
Van Oosterwijck (1630-93) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of florals and still lifes. She was a significant painter for her time, in part because she was also a crafty businesswoman who marketed her paintings to various noble houses, generating quite a demand.
Historians are sometimes unkind to her; she never married, but raised an orphaned nephew, and taught one of her servants to paint and to be self-sufficient. As she never married she's sometimes seen as "incomplete" while fellow painter Rachel Ruysch, who married and raised ten children, is usually depicted very sympathetically.
I like to think of her as a dedicated professional, taking joy in her art and in her autonomy, as one of the few women who were professional artists at the time. I love that she elevated one of her servants to be her own person. Not many upper-class women would do that.
Happy Flower Friday!
From the National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne.
ಜೆರೆಮಿ 
wimi 
And as they mature and come to the end of their life (which takes weeks!), the ray florets (or 
Sunbeam neighborhood, Jacksonville, Florida