Henri Fantin-Latour - Roses

"I paint flowers. You have to make the most of the moment, and this year I find them more beautiful than ever" (Fantin-Latour, 1879). During his lifetime, Fantin-Latour was very popular with English clients, who were fond of this type of floral arrangement. From the 1860s onwards, Fantin perfected his art by studying the tonal and colour relationships in bouquets of freshly picked flowers. In the summer, the artist would compose his own bouquets at his country house, before painting them in his studio. Through his virtuoso technique, he sought to remain faithful to nature, which he approached from the perspective of a botanist as much as a poet.
This still life is one of the rare examples of a bouquet of roses painted by Fantin-Latour held in a public collection. Most of them remain in private English collections, proof that the painter's interest in these roses, which he sought to personify, mirrored Victorian England's infatuation with this flower with its multiple meanings : "Roses, so difficult to draw, to model and to colour with their scrolls, their volutes alternately fluted like the ornament on a milliner's hat, round and smooth, and their buds, or resembling a woman'‘s breast, no one knew them better than Fantin" (J-E Blanche, 1906)