Bouquet of Flowers

c. 1900–1905

Pastel on paper, 80.3 × 64.1 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Blooms of many kinds burst from a blue vase against a warm, hazy ground. Stems and blossoms reach well beyond the rim of the vase.

Around 1900 he took up pastel and oil, and color became the center of his art. He said pastel let him give his dreams more substance.
Look among the blooms: butterflies hover at the edges of the bouquet.
The vase was made by the ceramicist Marie Botkin, who presented it to him as a gift around 1900.
Loose pastel strokes leave patches of the tan paper showing.
It came to the Met in 1956, a gift of Mrs. George B. Post.

As a young man he befriended the Bordeaux botanist Armand Clavaud. The MoMA brochure credits Clavaud with showing how science could feed the imagination.

Image: The Metropolitan Museum of Art Open Access · Public domain