Paul Gauguin
1848-1903 | French

Fleurs dans un vase avec partition musicale
(Flowers in vase with musical score)

Signed “P. Gauguin 74/76” (lower right)
Oil on canvas

Works by the legendary Paul Gauguin, particularly those comprising his still lifes, are rare treasures. This remarkable composition, entitled Fleurs dans un vase avec partition musicale (Flowers in a Vase with Musical Score), stands as an important glimpse of the master’s unparalleled eye for color, composition and expressive brushwork.

Using an extraordinary palette of soft pastels and rich jewel tones, Gauguin renders the central bouquet in luminous splendor that emerges in three dimensions against the neutral background. The wrinkled edges of the musical score are almost palpable, painted with the same thick impasto that gives the lush blooms their lifelike energy.

When viewing this composition, it is easy to see the technical proficiency that garnered the attention and admiration of fellow artists, including Camille Pissarro, Vincent van Gogh and Edgar Degas. It was Pissarro who persuaded Gauguin to submit a painting to the Salon of 1876. Both Pissarro and Degas were so impressed by his work that they extended an invitation to Gauguin to exhibit at the Impressionist Exhibition of 1879 and subsequent exhibitions thereafter. Even after the Impressionists held their final official exhibition in 1886, Gauguin maintained his association with Pissarro as the movement transitioned into Post-Impressionism.

Endowed with an exceptional sense of color and a fervent appreciation for life, he initially engaged in painting merely as a leisure activity. This hobby became his life’s calling in 1882, following the financial setback he experienced due to the Paris stock market crash, which resulted in the loss of his position as a stockbroker. Gauguin’s work, distinguished by its vibrant individuality, would go on to change the course of art history, and his instantly recognizable paintings are held in the world’s most esteemed museums and private collections. Still lifes similar to this one are owned by the National Gallery of Art, the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Museo National Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid.

Fleurs dans un vase avec partition musicale is accompanied by a certification from The Art Loss Register and is featured in the 1964 and 2002 Wildenstein catalogues raisonnés on the artist. 

Circa 1874-76 

Canvas: 16” high x 10 3/8” wide (40.64 x 27.31 cm)
Frame: 22 1/4” high x 16 7/8” wide (56.52 x 42.86 cm)

View the dossier:

Provenance:
Armand Parent, Paris, circa 1921
Otto Nierenstein, Vienna, circa 1928
Kunstsalon Abels, after 1950
Römer, Germany, circa 1950
  Private collection, Düsseldorf, circa 1988
M.S. Rau, New Orleans
Private collection, Virginia

Literature:
Charles Chassé, Gauguin et le groupe de Pont-Aven, Paris, 1921, p. 64
Wilhelm Barth, Paul Gauguin, 1929, p. 41
Lee van Dovski, Gauguin, 1950, no. 1, p. 338
Georges Wildenstein, Gauguin, vol. 1, Paris, 1964, no. 9, p. 5, illustrated
Merete Bodelsen, "The Dating of Gauguin’s Early Paintings," The Burlington Magazine, June 1965, p. 309
Daniel Wildenstein, Gauguin: A Savage in the Making. Catalogue Raisonné of the Paintings (1873-1888), vol. 1, 2002, Paris and Milan, no. 36, p. 37, illustrated

Exhibitions:
Basel, Kunsthalle, 1928, no. 1 (as Bunch of Flowers in Blue Vase, 1874)
Berlin, Thannhauser, 1928, no. 2