Flowers in a Blue Vase
| Support Type: | Wood Panel |
| Paint Type: | Oil Paint |
| Current Location: | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York |
| Location History: | The painting was first owned by the Comte de Bois-Aime in Marseille. It then passed to his nephew, M. de Loche, who kept it near Grenoble until around 1903–1904, when he sold it through a dealer named Fenaglio to a buyer named Trevroz. Trevroz owned it in Paris from that point on. Eventually the Paris dealer Alfred Daber had it, and in 1954 he sold it for just over $10,000 to the dealer Paul Rosenberg. Rosenberg kept it in his New York gallery for a couple of years before selling it in 1956 for $15,000 to Mr. and Mrs. Werner E. Josten. That same year, the Jostens donated the painting to the Metropolitan Museum, which is how it entered the Met’s collection. |
"Flowers in a Blue Vase", Adolphe Monticelli's still life painting from the 1880s, is a richly coloured pre impressionist painting, with a multitude of shades standing out, having been utilized in good measure. The artwork is textured and heavily painted, as was Monticelli's style of painting, and this same feature is what catches our attention the most, as this style takes direct inspiration from the French painter, Eugène Delacroix. As for his own original trademark feature, we notice the utilization of background in an apt manner, as Monticelli was never afraid to leave his backgrounds bare: the usage of plain colours in the background as opposed to the highly detailed flowers, highlights the key subject more, and separates it from the wood panel it was painted on.