Rare Peonies

Vase with Peonies

Paris, Summer 1886

Oil on canvas54x43cm

Privately owned

(Sotheby’s Auction

London 3/12/1983

Six pink & rose tinted Japanese peonies in an oval white vase sit on a slightly suggested surface in a dark room. The shadows suggest light from the upper left of middle, back light. The flowers drip with their luxurious heavy heads bent almost apologizing for their beauty. This may be one of the most indulgent of Vincent’s canvases. It has the lush feeling of June in Paris. The peony is a sophisticated choice it is not a wild flower but an expensive plant grown in wealthy gardens. This Japanese variety is still rather rare. They were grown in a aristocratic garden. If I didn’t know for a fact that Vincent hated the financial aspect of the art world I would guess he painted this for a bourgeois market. It is a lovely painting and has little of the haunting questions and uncomfortable emotional turmoil one sees so often in Vincent’s work. It is the recording of just some breathtaking fashionable flowers, bowing in modesty. I was not surprised to notice it is in a private collection.