Henri Fantin-Latour
likely snipped the roses and blue nigella blossoms in this dainty array from a
garden in Normandy, where he and his wife, the painter Victoria Dubourg,
retreated to her family’s house in the summer months. Fantin was an accomplished
portraitist and also painted scenes from Wagner’s operas, but it was his flower
paintings that found a ready market, in Paris, London, and the United States.
According to a catalogue of his work compiled by Dubourg, he painted nine still
lifes of roses in 1882 alone.