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Giant living painting with 26,500 real flowers unveiled at London's National Gallery

As part of the National Gallery's celebration of Dutch flower paintings from the early 17th century to the late 18th century, The Flower Council of Holland created a giant 'living' painting, made up of 26,500 real flowers, to stand outside the famous London landmark on Trafalgar Square.

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Giant floral display featuring 26,500 real flowers in a vase-shaped arrangement outside the National Gallery on Trafalgar Square, London

Entitled A Still Life of Flowers in a Wan-Li Vase, it pays homage to Dutch artist Ambrosius Bosschaert the Elder's floral masterpiece – a still life painting of a beautiful vase of flowers. It took almost 30 florists working for two days straight, using 100 blocks of florist foam, nearly 30,000 stems of 26 different flower varieties in 37 different colours to recreate Bosschaert's work.

The Flower Council had to appoint PressOn – a Kent-based digital printer – to create a huge print to act as a guide to install the flowers, which included six tulip varieties, four varieties of peonies, three varieties of carnations, six varieties of freesias, six varieties of calla lily, and five varieties of roses.

The large structure had a built-in water irrigation system to keep the blooms fresh, and over the course of five days, the flowers were replenished twice bringing the total number to 52,950. Beautiful. Make sure you watch the video below to see the living painting come together.

Large framed floral display with 26,500 real flowers arranged in a white vase against a dark background, installed outside the National Gallery in London
Overhead view of the living floral installation showing densely packed blooms in pink, red, yellow, white and orange arranged on dark textured ground
Close-up of the living floral painting showing clusters of pink, red, orange and yellow flowers arranged against a dark textured background
Vibrant close-up of the floral installation featuring red and orange flowers, purple blooms, yellow daisies, pink peonies and other colourful varieties densely arranged together
Giant floral installation of 26,500 real flowers displayed outside the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square, with visitors posing in front of the classical building
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