Bouquet in a Vase

In 1878 Renoir sent a painting to the official Salon, and when the Impressionists held their next group show the year after, he stayed out of it. He had worked out that Paris bought pictures through the Salon, and the portrait commissions that followed proved him right.

Flowers were what he painted between those jobs. He told the dealer Ambroise Vollard years later that flowers rested his brain, that he could load on colour and push the values about boldly without fear of ruining anything, while with a sitter in front of him he would not dare. This bouquet is a small canvas, under 50 centimetres tall, its vase set against an acid green wall, and the shadow the vase throws is painted in blue rather than grey.