Roses in a Bowl

Henri Fantin-Latour · 1881

Medium

Oil on canvas

Original size

26.2 × 31.4 cm (10 5/16 × 12 3/8 in.)

Currently held

Art Institute of Chicago

Movement

Realism

Roses in a Bowl is among the most quietly commanding flower paintings of the nineteenth century, its blooms rendered with a softness that seems almost impossible to achieve in paint. Henri Fantin-Latour spent his career largely outside the movements that defined his era — neither fully Impressionist nor rigidly academic — and it is his flower paintings that secured his lasting reputation. Working from flowers cut fresh each morning, he built up petals in thin, luminous layers, capturing the way light diffuses through a rose rather than simply sitting on its surface. The result is a sense of fragility and transience that feels entirely unforced. His still lifes found an especially devoted following in England, where collectors snapped them up through the dealer Edwin Edwards — a relationship that kept Fantin-Latour financially stable for much of his working life. The rose variety now known as the Fantin-Latour rose was named in his honour. This hand-painted oil reproduction is made on canvas using traditional techniques, preserving the tonal depth and delicate layering that make the original, held at the Art Institute of Chicago, so difficult to appreciate through a screen alone.