Basket of Hyacinth Bulbs

Paris, early in 1887, with nothing in flower to paint. What Van Gogh set on the table instead was a basket of hyacinth bulbs, the kind of Dutch goods that travelled abroad by the crate. He had spent much of the previous summer painting bouquet after bouquet, by his own account to get his eye out of grey and into colour, and here he took on the opposite sort of subject: soil, wicker, paper and dry husks. He worked on a small oval panel rather than a stretched canvas. The bulbs are not dormant either. Their tips have started into green growth, the way bulbs do in a warm room while the street outside is still winter.