The Luxembourg Gardens, Paris

When Albert Edelfelt painted The Luxembourg Gardens, he was already quite well known in the Paris art world, having lived there for over ten years. Yet surprisingly, this is the only large-scale work depicting Paris that he ever made. It is also unusual among his larger paintings in that he adopted many of the hallmarks of Impressionism in it, such as using complementary colours to create contrast. However, contrary to Impressionist practice, Edelfelt prepared and worked on the painting for more than a year in several locations, both in the studio and outdoors. The painting was exhibited in May 1887 and was favourably received by critics. Subsequently, this particular work has become a symbol for the close connections which Finnish art in general and Edelfelt in particular enjoyed with Paris at the time the French capital was considered the epicentre of the art world.