Vase of white carnations and roses and bottle

When this was painted, in 1886, Vincent van Gogh had just moved to Paris to live with his brother Theo, and he spent much of that summer painting cut flowers. It was cheap, deliberate practice. After years of dark Dutch interiors he wanted to teach his eye colour, and a bunch of flowers bought at market gave him a fresh model every few days. White carnations and roses stand in a plain vase beside a bottle, the paint still fairly sober here, the background dim. Within two years his palette would be far brighter. The work is catalogued among his Paris flower pieces as F246, though, like several from those months, its attribution to his hand is given cautiously. It hangs at the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo, whose founder Helene Kröller-Müller was one of the first collectors to buy Van Gogh in quantity.