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In May 1890, in his last days at the asylum at Saint-Rémy, Van Gogh painted four big bouquets in a rush, two of irises and two of roses, the only ambitious still lifes of the whole year he spent shut away there. He told his sister he had worked like a madman. This is one of the irises, violet flowers set hard against a lemon-yellow ground, colours chosen to fight each other and make both louder. He had checked himself into the asylum the year before after cutting his ear, and within days of finishing these flowers he left for Auvers-sur-Oise, north of Paris. He would be dead there by the end of July. The yellow background was once brighter still, a red pigment he used has faded over time.