A forest floor with hollyhocks, roses, blue-lace flowers, a sunflower and toadstools, with marigolds in an urn beyond

This verdant still life affirms Withoos' reputation as one of the most talented painters of dramatically lit forest floors in the Dutch Republic. Typically set at the base of a tree trunk, these compositions teemed with wild plants, reptiles and insects, the microcosm of activity normally juxtaposed against a hilly landscape or a partially visible garden in the background. The meticulous attention paid to the various plants in this picture, which are made more vivid through their placement in this dramatically lit setting, speak of the influence of the leading innovator of the Dutch forest floor still life, Otto Marseus van Schrieck, with whom Withoos traveled in Italy between 1648 and 1653. In Rome, they joined the Schildersbent, an informal society of Dutch and Flemish painters that flourished roughly a century, beginning around 1620. Among Withoos' Italian patrons was Cardinal Leopoldo de' Medici.

Withoos executed the present forest floor decades after he returned to the Netherlands. While the ongoing influence of van Schrieck is evident in the meticulously rendered flora and fauna, its cool colors and atmospheric sfumatura recall sixteenth-century Venetian conventions, which Withoos would have encountered in Italy. The telltale use of alternating bands of light and shadow, which here terminate in the left background across the sunlit urn, appear throughout Withoos' oeuvre and help to guide the viewer's eye seamlessly into the composition.