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Vase of Flowers
The Cleveland Museum of Art

Vase of Flowers

Description

Rapturous flower still lifes like this dominated the last decade and a half of Odilon Redon’s career and provided his greatest commercial success. His interest in plants and flowers began in his youth; child of wine producers, he grew up northwest of Bordeaux and was sensitive to fluctuations in weather, light, and temperature affecting the grape harvest. When he was 20, Redon met Armond Clavaud, a botanist and draftsman who illustrated his own compendium of flowers of the Bordeaux region. Clavaud’s meticulously rendered drawings sparked the young Redon’s imagination and helped to instill his desire to paint “nature, as seen in a dream.”

Provenance

(Georges Bernheim, Paris, France, January 1929, stock no. A498, sold to Knoedler & Co.); (Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, September 1929, stock no. A1021, sold to George C. Lee); Mrs. G. C. Lee returned to Knoedler & Co., New York, NY (stock number A1021) November 1929, held jointly with E. Bignou.; (Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, January 1930, stock number A1171, jointly with E. Bignou, sold to Mrs. R.T. Wilson); Mrs. R.T. Wilson [1875-1947], New York, NY returned to Knoedler & Co., May 1930; (M. Knoedler & Co., New York, NY, December 1935, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art); The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH

Dimensions

73 × 59 cm

Accession No

1935.233

Curatorial Affinity Stream

Continuing the Universe of Odilon Redon (French, 1840–1916)

Modern European Painting and Sculpture • France, late 19th-early 20th Century • Harmonious Works & Contemporaries