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Dahlias
1866
Medium
oil on canvas
Measurements
24.5 × 34.2 cm
Credit Line
National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne
Felton Bequest, 1906
Gallery location
Not on display
About this work
It was during a visit to his English friends Edwin and Ruth Edwards in 1861 that Henri Fantin-Latour was persuaded to paint still lifes, a genre that his hosts knew to be popular and fashionable among collectors. On his return to France, Fantin-Latour, who had hitherto produced mainly self-portraits, concentrated on the still life in the hope that decorative floral paintings might provide him at last with a source of income from his work. In a way, still lifes were suited to the artist’s quiet temperament, for he had, as he told Edwin Edwards, ‘a horror of movement, and of animated scenes’. The passion for still lifes that Fantin-Latour had witnessed in his friend Édouard Manet may also have encouraged the younger artist to pursue this new direction.
Artwork Details
Inscription
inscribed in black paint l.r.: Fantin : 66
Accession Number
273-2
Department
International Painting
This digital record has been made available on NGV Collection Online through the generous support of Digitisation Champion Ms Carol Grigor through Metal Manufactures Limited
Subjects (general)
Botanical Still Lifes
Subjects (specific)
cream (colour) flower (plant material) flower pieces pink (colour) red (colour)
Provenance
With Messrs Obach & Co. (dealer), London, by 1906, stock no. 2981; from where purchased, on the advice of Sir George Clausen, for the Felton Bequest, 1906.