Lot Essay
Vase de fleurs (Lilas) was painted in the spring of 1885 when Gauguin was staying with fellow painter Claude-Emile Schuffenecker and his family at 29 rue Boulard in Paris. Gauguin had spent the first part of the year with his wife Mette and their children in Copenhagen, and finally fled to Paris with his son Clovis when the ennui of his bourgeois existence had become unbearable. Despite these tribulations, the present picture is one of six still lifes completed that year in which bouquets of flowers predominate.
Gauguin quarreled not only with his wife but also with his friends, including Degas, and for a time had to be content with a job hanging posters. Despite his hardships he produced paintings which are characterized by a bold severity which presages the less realistically rendered still lifes of the later years in Pont-Avon.
The Wildenstein Institute will include this painting in their forthcoming revised edition of the Gauguin catalogue raisonné.
Gauguin quarreled not only with his wife but also with his friends, including Degas, and for a time had to be content with a job hanging posters. Despite his hardships he produced paintings which are characterized by a bold severity which presages the less realistically rendered still lifes of the later years in Pont-Avon.
The Wildenstein Institute will include this painting in their forthcoming revised edition of the Gauguin catalogue raisonné.