Forthcoming

Inscription: Signed (lower left): otho Marseus / van Schrieck fecit

?Graf van Limburg Stirum, Rijksdorp, The Netherlands; Herr Schäfer, Düsseldorf (until 1953; sale, Lempertz, Cologne, May 6, 1953, no. 95, for $297 to Kleinberger); [Kleinberger, New York, 1953; sold to MMA]

North Salem, N.Y. Hammond Museum. May 15–September 3, 1971, no catalogue?

Memphis. Brooks Memorial Art Gallery. "Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," May 1–June 23, 1982, no catalogue?

Columbus, Ohio. Columbus Museum of Art. "Seventeenth-Century Dutch Paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," August 28–November 28, 1982, no catalogue?

Hamilton, N.Y. Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. "Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt from The Metropolitan Museum of Art," February 6–April 17, 1983, no. 5.

New York. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art," September 18, 2007–January 6, 2008, no catalogue.

Richard Linke. "Ethno-Herpetological-Catalogue. A selection of amphibian and reptilian representations in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York." HERP, Bulletin of the New York Herpetological Society 7 (December 1970), p. 9, no. 16, identifies the reptiles in the painting as a lizard and a snake.

Ingvar Bergström. "Marseus peintre de fleurs, papillons et serpents." L'Oeil no. 233 (December 1974), p. 29, describes its motifs.

Everett Fahy. Metropolitan Flowers. New York, 1982, pp. 59, 109, ill. (color), describes the "opium poppy" as the principle subject of the "sinister painting".

Stephanie Dickey et al. Dutch Painting in the Age of Rembrandt from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Exh. cat., Picker Art Gallery, Colgate University. Hamilton, N.Y., 1983, pp. 20–21, no. 5, ill., notes the accuracy with which each creature and plant is depicted, and suggests that some motifs may be symbolic.

Peter C. Sutton. A Guide to Dutch Art in America. Grand Rapids, Mich., 1986, p. 190.

Susanna Steensma. Otto Marseus van Schrieck: Leben und Werk. Hildesheim, 1999, pp. 143–44, 150, no. B1.69, fig. 93, identifies the plants and insects; notes that a few motifs occur in other paintings by the artist; mentions two variants.

Walter Liedtke. Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art. New York, 2007, vol. 1, pp. xi, 84, 450, 452–54, no. 115, colorpl. 115, dates it about 1670.

Esmée Quodbach. "The Age of Rembrandt: Dutch Paintings in The Metropolitan Museum of Art." Metropolitan Museum of Art Bulletin 65 (Summer 2007), pp. 22, 50.