Roses in a Vase

In 1894, the year Caillebotte died, this small canvas was with Ambroise Vollard, a Paris dealer then near the start of his career. In December 1910 it came up at the Hôtel Drouot, the Paris auction rooms, as lot six. The buyer was probably the father of the owner who sent it to Sotheby's in London in 2015, so for about a century it seems to have stayed with one family. Marie Berhaut, who compiled the catalogue of Caillebotte's paintings, lists it as red roses in a vase, and it is dated to 1883. On the canvas the flowers are pink and mauve, set in a tall glass vase against a pale, loosely brushed wall with a band of yellow at the left. The Caillebotte committee in Paris confirmed the attribution in 2015, and in May 2022 the painting sold again, at an auction in Bern.