This is a painting during what is known as the Golden Age in the Netherlands.
That the flowers wither and insects may nibble at the leaves are meant to be reminders of death, or at least, reminders that life is transient. However these kinds of paintings are tributes to the achievement of material wealth by the merchant class.
Although they painted in the Baroque period, the Dutch painters produced little religious art. What they did (instead of great themes of history and religion) is choose secular genres such as still life and genre paintings of everyday scenes, and landscape painting.
