Vase of Flowers

In the early 1880s, Claude Monet focused on painting ambitious floral still lifes. This lavish bouquet of mallows (a wild flower), however, gave him particular trouble. He set the painting aside, only returning to it 40 years later. His later reworking over long-dried paint is visible in some of the petals and leaves. Monet finally signed and sold the painting around 1920.

The off-centre placement of the ceramic vase and the unusually high viewpoint create a strange feeling, as if the table and flowers are tilting forward and the forms dissolving.