Before Van Gogh painted the bright, upright vases of sunflowers people know today, he painted them cut, wilting, and already starting to fall apart.
What you're looking at
Van Gogh painted this still life in 1887, showing cut sunflowers lying against a vivid blue background, their heads already drooping and their petals beginning to curl and dry. It's one of four cut-sunflower paintings he made in Paris that year, signed and dated by the artist himself in the lower left corner: "Vincent 87."
Dying flowers, a year before the famous vases
This painting was made a full year before Van Gogh's now-famous series of sunflowers standing upright in a vase, and it shows his early fascination with the flower's sculptural, decaying forms rather than their bright, living bloom. A companion painting from the same set of four shows the same flowers flipped to reveal the pale, plainer back of the flower head rather than its face.
The vivid blue background is part of the brighter, more saturated palette Van Gogh developed after moving to Paris and encountering Impressionist and Neo-Impressionist color firsthand. Paul Gauguin later acquired this painting in a trade with Van Gogh and kept it hanging above his own bed for a time, before eventually selling it to help fund his trip to Tahiti. It's now held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
One detail to look for
Look at the curling, drying petals of the flower heads. Van Gogh paints the decay itself with the same thick, energetic brushwork he'd later use for fresh, blooming flowers, treating the dying stage as just as visually compelling.
See it at its real size
Our canvas print is labeled against the true size of the original, 61.0 x 43.2 cm. Shop the canvas print.