La Grande Capucine

Lex de Renault · n.d.

Medium

Brush and black gouache, heightened with white gouache, over traces of graphite, on tan wove card

Original size

25.8 × 21.6 cm (10 3/16 × 8 9/16 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Impressionism

La Grande Capucine is a quietly commanding study of the nasturtium — rendered with a precision and tonal confidence that transforms a garden flower into something monumental. Lex de Renault worked in a technique that was both restrained and highly deliberate: black gouache applied with a brush over faint graphite underdrawing, then lifted into brightness with white gouache, the whole composition resting on the warm tone of the card itself. That tan ground does much of the work — it serves as the mid-tone, meaning every mark is either a shadow pressed down or a highlight pulled up. The result is a drawing that feels three-dimensional without relying on colour, the nasturtium's rounded petals and trailing stems given weight and atmosphere through pure tonal contrast. Works on paper held by the Art Institute of Chicago span a wide range of European and American graphic traditions, and this piece sits comfortably within the lineage of botanical and decorative draughtsmanship that flourished in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Our hand-painted oil reproduction translates de Renault's tonal language into pigment on canvas, preserving the interplay of light and shadow while giving the image a richness and permanence suited to the wall rather than the archive drawer.