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Still life of a tall cylindrical vase on a table holding a cluster of flowers as the sunlight hits it. 　

A floral vase containing large round cluster of small rust-colored flowers, reminiscent of hydrangeas, with a few green leaves poking out on left and right, rests on the edge of a table. The vase is off-white color with the suggestion of a something green painted on it. Sunlight enters from the left casting a soft shadow of the vase, falling onto the table, and touching a few of the leaves and highlighting the roundness of the cluster. The background is dappled strokes of browns with color.

Gallery Text

This is the only still life Seurat is known to have painted, and it is a rare surviving example of his early work, as it is believed that the artist destroyed most of those canvases. In its subject and predominant use of red pigments, it aligns with French academic trends of the 1870s, particularly artists’ interest in flower painting and in the late work of the romantic painter Eugène Delacroix. Nevertheless, several aspects of the painting hint at the development of Seurat’s signature style, known as pointillism, in which he juxtaposed small dabs of contrasting pure colors. The vertical strokes of repeated colors covering the background represent a technique Seurat experimented with in other work from this period. The crisscrossing patchwork of blue and brown brushstrokes in the shadow cast by the vase onto the tablecloth approximates the technique he would cultivate in his later oil sketches, like the example hanging nearby.

Identification and Creation

Object Number
1974.100
People
Georges Pierre Seurat, French (Paris 1859 - 1891 Paris)
Title
Vase of Flowers
Other Titles
Alternate Title: Vase de Fleurs / Bouquet dans un Vase
Classification
Paintings
Work Type
painting
Date
c. 1879-c. 1881
Culture
French
Persistent Link
https://hvrd.art/o/226837

Location

Location
Level 1, Room 1220, European Art, 19th–20th century, Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
View this object's location on our interactive map

Physical Descriptions

Medium
Oil on canvas
Dimensions
46.3 x 38.5 cm (18 1/4 x 15 3/16 in.)
framed: 72 x 64.4 x 8.3 cm (28 3/8 x 25 3/8 x 3 1/4 in.)
Inscriptions and Marks
  • inscription: On stretcher, in blue pencil: 47019F
  • inscription: Back of frame, in blue pencil: 47019
  • inscription: Back of frame, in white chalk: B[rest is illegible]

Provenance

Recorded Ownership History
Georges Pierre Seurat, (c. 1878 - ?); to his brother-in-law M. Léon Appert ( - 1925); to his daughter Mme. Léon Roussel (1925 - 1934); to her son François Roussel, (1934 - 1939) sold; to [Galerie Bignou, (1939 - 1940) sold]; to Maurice Wertheim, New York, (1940-1951), bequest; to Fogg Art Museum, 1951.


Notes:
Not in the possession of the Fogg until 1974.

Acquisition and Rights

Credit Line
Harvard Art Museums/Fogg Museum, Bequest from the Collection of Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906
Accession Year
1974
Object Number
1974.100
Division
European and American Art
Contact
am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu
Permissions

THIS WORK HAS SIGNIFICANT LOAN RESTRICTIONS BY THE TERMS OF ITS ACQUISITION TO THE HARVARD ART MUSEUMS.

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Publication History

  • A Selection of 19th Century Paintings, auct. cat., Galeries Bignou (New York, NY, 1942), no. 15
  • John Rewald, Georges Seurat, Wittenborn & Co. (New York, NY, 1943), no. 46, repr. as pl. 81
  • Edward Alden Jewell, French Impressionists and Their Contemporaries in American Collections, Hyperion Press (New York, NY, 1944), repr., plate 175
  • Alfred M. Frankfurter, "Today's Collectors: Modern Milestones", Art News (June 1946), vol. XLV, no. 4, p. 64
  • French Painting since 1870, lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, exh. cat., Fogg Art Museum (Cambridge, MA, 1946), p. 18, repr. p. 19
  • John Rewald, Georges Seurat, Albin Michel (Paris, France, 1948), pl. 17
  • Six Masters of Post-Impressionism, exh. cat., Wildenstein & Company (New York, NY, 1948), no. 46
  • La Peinture Française Depuis 1870: Collection Maurice Wertheim, exh. cat., Tom Taylor (Québec, Canada, 1949), no. 8, pp. 23-24
  • Jacques De Laprade, George Seurat, Somogy (Paris, France, 1951), repr. p. 6
  • Charles Sterling, La Nature Morte de L'Antiquite a Nos Jours, Editions Pierre Tisné (Paris, France, 1952), repr. in b/w p. 95, text p. 90
  • Henri Dorra and John Rewald, Seurat: L'oeuvre peint, biographie et catalogue critique (Paris, France, 1959), cat. no. 7
  • The Maurice Wertheim Catalogue: Modern French Art-- Monet to Picasso, exh. cat., North Carolina Museum of Art (Raleigh, NC, 1960), p. 52, repr. p. 53
  • César M. de Hauke, Seurat et son Oeuvre, Grund (Paris, France, 1961), cat. no. 3
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, exh. cat., The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (Houston, TX, 1962), p. 48
  • Fiorella Minervino and André Chastel, L'Opera Completa di Seurat (Milan, Italy, 1972), no. 5
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, exh. cat., Maine State Museum (Augusta, ME, 1972), no. 33
  • John O'Brian, Degas to Matisse: the Maurice Wertheim Collection, Harry N. Abrams, Inc. and Fogg Art Museum (New York, NY and Cambridge, MA, 1988), no. 12, pp. 70-71, repr. p. 71
  • Michael F. Zimmermann, "Seurat, Charles Blanc, and Naturalist Art Criticism", Museum Studies, The Art Institute of Chicago (1989), vol. XIV, no. 2, repr. in b/w fig. 3, p. 203; text, p. 202
  • Edgar Peters Bowron, European Paintings Before 1900 in the Fogg Art Museum: A Summary Catalogue including Paintings in the Busch-Reisinger Museum, Harvard University Art Museums (Cambridge, MA, 1990), p. 129; repr. as no. 401
  • Catherine Grenier, Seurat: Catalogo Completo dei dipinti, Cantini Editore (Florence, Italy, 1990), repr. in color pl. 5, p. 19
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, exh. cat., Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1990), repr. in color no. 19, p. 69
  • "Entretien avec Françoise Cachin: Seurat au Grand Palais", Dossier de l'art (April 1991 - May 1991), repr. in color p. 5
  • Robert L. Herbert, Georges Seurat, 1859-1891, exh. cat., The Metropolitan Museum of Art (New York, NY, 1991), no. 74, p. 148-149; repr. in color
  • Robert L. Herbert, Georges Seurat: 1859-1891, exh. cat., Metropolitan Museum of Art / Harry N. Abrams, Inc. (New York, NY, 1991), no. 75, pp. 108-109; repr. in color
  • Michael F. Zimmermann, Seurat and the Art Theory of his Time, Fonds Mercator (Antwerp, 1991), repr. in color no. 96, p. 67; text p. 66
  • Sarah Carr-Gomm, Seurat, Studio Editions (London, England, 1993), repr. in color p. 47; text p. 46
  • Dina Anchin, "Refining Style: Technical Investigation of an Early Work by Georges Pierre Seurat in the Maurice Wertheim Collection" (thesis (certificate in conservation), Straus Center for Conservation and Technical Studies, 2013), Unpublished
  • Elizabeth M. Rudy, "Researching the Wertheim Collection at the Harvard Art Museums", Collections: A Journal for Museum and Archives Professionals (Summer 2014), Vol. 10, No. 3, pp. 301-6

Exhibition History

  • Seurat et ses amis, Galerie Beaux-Arts (Paris), Paris, 12/01/1933 - 01/31/1934
  • A Selection of Nineteenth Century French Paintings, Bignou Gallery, New York, 02/01/1942 - 02/28/1942
  • French Painting since 1870 lent by Maurice Wertheim, Class of 1906, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 06/01/1946 - 09/07/1946; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 07/01/1953 - 09/13/1953
  • La Peinture Française depuis 1870, Musée de la Province de Quebec, 07/12/1949 - 08/07/1949
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 07/01/1952 - 09/14/1952
  • French Paintings Since 1870 from the Maurice Wertheim Collection, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 06/01/1953 - 09/30/1953
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, 06/15/1957 - 09/15/1957
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Minneapolis, 06/10/1958 - 08/31/1958
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection: Manet to Picasso, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Houston, 06/13/1962 - 09/02/1962
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, 06/20/1963 - 09/01/1963
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Currier Museum of Art, Manchester, 06/24/1965 - 09/07/1965
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Rhode Island School of Design Museum, Providence, 09/03/1968 - 09/22/1968
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Montgomery Museum of Art, Montgomery, 06/01/1971 - 09/30/1971
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection, Maine State Museum, Augusta, 06/01/1972 - 09/01/1972
  • Master Paintings from the Fogg Collection, Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, 04/13/1977 - 08/31/1977
  • Manet to Matisse: The Maurice Wertheim Collection, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, New York, 04/09/1985 - 05/25/1985
  • The Maurice Wertheim Collection and Selected Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Paintings and Drawings in the Fogg Art Museum, Isetan Department Store, Tokyo, 03/01/1990 - 04/10/1990; Yamaguchi Prefectural Museum of Art, 04/14/1990 - 05/13/1990
  • Seurat, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, Paris, 04/09/1991 - 08/12/1991
  • Re-View: S427 Impressionist & Postimpressionist Art, Harvard Art Museums/Arthur M. Sackler Museum, Cambridge, 08/02/2008 - 06/18/2011
  • 32Q: 1220 Wertheim, Harvard Art Museums, Cambridge, 11/16/2014 - 01/01/2050

Subjects and Contexts

  • Google Art Project

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Verification Level

This record has been reviewed by the curatorial staff but may be incomplete. Our records are frequently revised and enhanced. For more information please contact the Division of European and American Art at am_europeanamerican@harvard.edu