Mixed Flowers in an Earthenware Pot

In 1869 Renoir and Claude Monet were both in their late twenties, both short of money, and working so closely that at times they painted the very same thing. That year Renoir wrote to their friend Frédéric Bazille that he was nearly always at Monet's and that they did not eat every day. This bouquet is one of those shared subjects. The two sat side by side in front of a single arrangement of dahlias, asters and sunflowers in a rough earthenware pot, with pears laid beside it, and each made his own picture. Monet's version is now at the Getty Museum in Los Angeles. Renoir painted his on paperboard, and he handled it in two ways at once. The petals are short, wet touches, while the pot and the burnished pears are laid in with broader, smoother strokes, so the flowers look light and the pottery heavy.