The white background behind this vase of irises wasn't always white. Van Gogh painted something warmer, and time quietly changed it.
What you're looking at
Van Gogh painted this bouquet of purple-blue irises in May 1890, during his stay at the Saint-Rémy asylum in the south of France, in the final year of his life. The flowers lean and curl in every direction, painted with the same restless, energetic brushwork found across his late work.
A background that used to be pink
Research from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which owns this painting, notes that the background was originally pink rather than the near-white we see today. The red pigment Van Gogh used to create that pink was fugitive, meaning it degrades and fades with exposure to light over time. As it faded, it softened and changed the contrast Van Gogh had originally composed between the warm background and the cool blue-violet flowers.
It's the same kind of pigment story behind the walls of Van Gogh's Bedroom, which also faded from a warmer color to a cooler one over the decades. Several of his late paintings carry this same quiet, chemical change, invisible unless a museum's own conservators go looking for it.
One detail to look for
Look at the edges where the flowers meet the background. The contrast there is gentler today than Van Gogh intended, because the background has cooled from pink toward white while the blue-violet petals have stayed largely as he painted them.
See it at its real size
Our canvas print is labeled against the true size of the original, 73.7 x 92.1 cm, so what you're hanging is honestly scaled. Shop the canvas print.