Vase with Flowers
Jean-François RAFFAËLLI
(French, 1850-1924)
Vase with Flowers
Datelate 1890s
Mediumoil on paper mounted to board
Dimensionsoverall: 28 1/2 x 21 1/4 in. (72.4 x 54 cm)
ClassificationPAINTINGS
Credit LineSBMA, Gift of Michael and Jan Schwartz
Object number2005.93.3
Subject(s)
- flowers
- plants
- still lifes
Collection
- 19th century French
Sub-Collection(s)
- Still Life
On View
On viewCollections
Label TextRaffaëlli was best known for his depictions of Paris’s ragpickers and the blighted areas of the city in which they lived. However, he held a special appreciation for flower painting. According to his biographer, the artist once proclaimed “Yes, in truth, I try to be the flower itself at the moment that I paint it.” Indeed, Raffaëlli extended his philosophy of embodiment, which he termed caractérisme, even to the subjects of his still lifes, as this floral composition attests. As was his habit, Raffaëlli allows the beige support of his artist’s board to offset his subject, economically suggesting the glass vase in which the flowers are contained, as well as the reflection that it casts, with just a few strokes of color. The petals and intertwined stems of sunshine-yellow daisies and vermillion poppies, in varying states of bloom, are expertly distinguished by the artist’s canny use of black. Thus, the seeming incompleteness of the painting is in fact a virtuoso demonstration of the artist’s skill in conjuring his subject through a minimum of tonal contrasts and drags of the brush.
Michel-François Dandré-Bardon
ca. 18th century
