Catherine Howard, Lady d’Aubigny c. 1638

Anthony van Dyck painted this portrait of Catherine Howard, Lady d’Aubigny, capturing her holding a bouquet of roses. The roses she holds are no mere decoration. In the language of flowers, prominent since antiquity and revived in the Renaissance, roses are complex symbols. White roses can represent innocence or secrecy, red roses stand for love and passion. These symbols have roots that stretch back to ancient Greece and Rome, where roses were associated with Aphrodite and Venus, goddesses of love. Consider Botticelli's "Birth of Venus," where roses fall from the heavens, linking divine beauty with earthly love. This motif resurfaces repeatedly in art and literature, always carrying echoes of beauty, mortality, and the ephemeral nature of existence. Van Dyck invites us to contemplate the transient nature of beauty and life, engaging us in a dialogue that spans centuries.