Vase of Lilacs, Roses, and Tulips

In the spring of 1862 Gustave Courbet left Paris for the Saintonge, in western France, and stayed nearly a year as the guest of Étienne Baudry, a wealthy collector who kept greenhouses and an unusually rich garden. Courbet, better known for his defiant scenes of stone breakers and country funerals, spent that year turning out flower pictures he meant frankly to sell. This is one of them. Look at what fills the vase: spring lilacs and tulips sitting beside blooms of high summer, a bouquet that could never have been cut on any single day. They came from Baudry's hothouses, where several seasons were kept going at once.