Fleurs (Narcisses, Jacinthes, Coucous, Fleurs Jaunes, Giroflees)
Artist:
Henri Fantin-Latour
(French, 1836 - 1904)
Culture: French
Date: 1873
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions:
20 1/4 x 9 3/4 in. (51.4 x 24.8 cm)
Credit Line: Bequest of Gilbert M. Denman, Jr.
Object number: 2005.1.172
Signed: Signed and dated, upper left: Fantin 73
Provenance: sold, Parke-Bernet, New York, Jan. 15, 1958, lot 66 to Schoneman Galleries, New York; Gilbert M. Denman, Jr. (1921-2004), San Antonio, by bequest to San Antonio Museum of Art, 2005
Published References
Mme. Fantin-Latour, Catalogue de l'oeuvre complet de Fantin-Latour (Paris: Henri Floury, ed., 1911), p.76, no. 672.
Label Text
Although a highly skilled portraitist, Fantin-Latour became a celebrated still-life painter. Indeed, the artist painted over eight hundred floral still lifes alone during his career. Here, Fantin-Latour has captured a riotous bouquet filled with vibrant yellow daffodils counterbalanced by the deep reds of the wallflowers. As if to suggest the bounty of the bouquet that seems to almost overwhelm its vase, or perhaps signify the passage of time, the artist draws the viewer’s eye down to the table through strategically placed petals and daffodils that have fallen from above. Having rendered the fallen flora in muted tones, the artist brings the viewer’s focus back to the Japanese vase. Dating to the Meiji period, it is likely painted enamel over copper—details that would not have been lost on the English patrons for whom the painting was likely intended. At the time of its creation, Fantin-Latour had been painting many still lifes for the English market, which since the late-1860s had been largely obsessed with the Aesthetic Movement that drew much influence from Japanese art and culture.
(Regina Palm, 2022)
(Regina Palm, 2022)
On view
In Collection(s)
The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.
This resource has been made possible in part by the National Endowment for the Humanities: Exploring the Human Endeavor.
