Flowerbed, Garden in Petit Gennevilliers

This round bed of red flowers grew in Caillebotte's own garden at Petit-Gennevilliers, on the Seine across from Argenteuil. He painted it close up in full sun, with the grey wall of a house cut off at the left edge and a pale path curving away on the right. The flowers are built from short, dense strokes of red and deep purple laid one over another, and the thick paint still stands up from the surface. In the lower left corner the canvas reads G. Caillebotte. According to Sotheby's, which sold the picture in New York in 2014, that signature was added by his brother Martial. Its first recorded owner was the Paris dealer Ambroise Vollard. It has since passed between private collectors and dealers, on view to the public in Birmingham, Alabama, in 1973 and in Cape Town in 1974.