[2][3] He was born in Antwerp, where he started his career, but he spent most of it in Middelburg (1587–1613), where he moved with his family because of the threat of religious persecution.

[1] After Bosschaert died in The Hague while on commission there for a flower piece, Balthasar van der Ast took over his workshop and pupils in Middelburg.

Thanks to the booming seventeenth-century Dutch art market, he became highly successful, as the inscription on one of his paintings attests.

[5] His works commanded high prices although he never achieved the level of prestige of Jan Brueghel the Elder, the Antwerp master who contributed to the floral genre.

[3] His sons and his pupil and brother-in-law, Balthasar van der Ast, were among those to uphold the Bosschaert dynasty which continued until the mid-17th century.