Geraniums

In 1888 Hassam was a young American studying at the Académie Julian in Paris, and he spent his summers north of the city at Villiers-le-Bel, in the garden of a house that had belonged to Thomas Couture, a French painter famous a generation earlier as a teacher. This is the patio there. Pots of red geraniums climb a stepped stand, two metal watering cans sit in full sun, and a woman in white is half hidden in the dark doorway, probably his wife Maude, who posed for many of the Villiers-le-Bel pictures. Paris was then preparing for the Exposition Universelle of 1889, the world's fair of the Eiffel Tower, and this canvas was shown there. It was probably also at that year's Salon, under the title Soleil et fleurs, Sun and Flowers. Hassam signed and dated it 1888 at the lower left, and on the back he painted his monogram in red with the date 1889.