Still Life: Japanese Vase with Roses and Anemones

Van Gogh painted these flowers in June 1890 at Auvers-sur-Oise, the village north of Paris where he spent the last weeks of his life, and where he would die on July 29. He was working fast that summer, sometimes a canvas a day, and he chose an almost square format, about 51 centimeters each way, unusual for him. The Japanese prints he had collected for years show up here in the flat, decorative green vase and the crowded, patterned surface. Roses and anemones press together in reds, whites and yellows, and at the lower left one dark red bloom has already begun to droop among the fresh ones.