Young Woman with Peonies

1870

Frédéric Bazille

Artist, French, 1841 - 1870

Holding a bunch of peonies in one hand, a woman with brown skin leans forward, toward us from behind a large basket holding dozens of flowers in this horizontal painting. The basket holding the flowers spans the width of the canvas, and the woman is shown behind it from the chest up. She wears a cream-white, long-sleeved blouse with scalloped trim around the high neck. She wears coral-red earrings, and a plaid cloth in tones of rust red, slate blue, pale purple, and black is tied tightly over her black hair, which is visible over her ears. Her brow is slightly furrowed, and she looks at us with large, dark eyes. Her full mouth is closed, the corners faintly downturned. She reaches her right arm, on our left, toward us with a bouquet of three pink-and-white peonies and greenery. Her basket is filled with yellow and red tulips, pink roses, white and purple lilac, and other white, pink, yellow, and blue flowers, and it takes up the bottom third of the composition. The woman and basket are shown against a dove-gray background. The artist prominently signed and dated the work with red letters near the upper right corner, near the woman’s head: “F. Bazille. 1870.”

Media Options

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In 1862, Bazille arrived in Paris to study both medicine, at his parents' insistence, and art, his preference. He joined the academic teaching studio run by Charles Gleyre, where he met Monet, Renoir, and Sisley. Attracted by the modernist tendencies of avant–garde art, the four abandoned the studio in favor of direct observation of nature. Working in close harmony, they gradually invented impressionism. Bazille's output was cut short when he was killed in 1870 during the Franco–Prussian War.

Early in the summer of 1870, before the outbreak of war, Bazille painted two similar works depicting a black woman with a lush array of flowers. Avoiding anecdotal specificity, the woman in the National Gallery painting is posed as a vendor extending a clutch of peonies chosen from her basket laden with seasonal blooms. The proffered peonies, flowers cultivated by Manet and the subject of a series of still lifes he painted in 1864–1865, are firmly portrayed in a manner reminiscent of Manet. Extending his modest tribute to the debonair leader of the avant–garde, Bazille's composition also alludes to one of Manet's most celebrated and notorious works, Olympia (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), in which a black servant offers a floral tribute to a naked prostitute.

On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery 90

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Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon

  • Dimensions

    overall: 60 x 75 cm (23 5/8 x 29 1/2 in.)
    framed: 83.8 x 99.4 x 7.6 cm (33 x 39 1/8 x 3 in.)

  • Accession

    1983.1.6

Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Given by the artist to Edmond Maître [d. 1898]; Gaston Maître; given 1913 to the artist's brother, Marc Bazille;[1] the artist's nephew, Frédéric Bazille, Montpellier, France, by 1935 until at least 1959.[2] (Wildenstein, London, New York, and Paris); sold October 1963 to Paul Mellon, Upperville, VA;[3] gift 1983 to NGA.
[1]See Michel Schulman, Frédéric Bazille, 1841-1870, catalogue raisonné, Paris, 1995, no. 61. [2]Lent by Frédéric Bazille to exhibitions in Paris in 1935, and in Montpellier in 1941 and 1959. [3]Acquisition source and date per Paul Mellon records in NGA curatorial files.

Associated Names

Exhibition History

1927

  • Rétrospective Bazille, Exposition internationale de Montpellier, May-June 1927, no. 24.

1935

  • Frederic Bazille, Association des Etudiants Protestants de Paris, Paris, 1935, no. 12, repro.

1937

  • La Naissance de l'impressionisme, Galerie des Beaux-Arts, Paris, 1937, no. 57.

1941

  • Centenaire de Frédéric Bazille, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 1941, no. 33

1950

  • Bazille, Wildenstein, Paris, 1950, no. 55

1955

  • Mostra di Capolavori Della Pittura Francese Dell'Ottocento, Palazzo Strozzi, Florence, 1955, no. 2, repro.

1958

  • Des Primitifs à Nicolas de Stael: Belles Peintures de collections privées de la région montpelliéraine, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 1958, no. 5.

1959

  • Frédéric Bazille, Musée Fabre, Montpellier, 1959, no. 37

1966

  • French Paintings from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon and Mrs. Mellon Bruce, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1966, no. 113, repro., as Negro Girl with Peonies.

1986

  • Gifts to the Nation: Selected Acquisitions from the Collections of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon, National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1986, unnumbered checklist

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, Washington, State Hermitage Museum, Leningrad; State Pushkin Museum of Fine Arts, Moscow, 1986, no. 1, repro.

1999

  • Faces of Impressionism: Portraits from American Collections", The Baltimore Museum of Art; The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The Cleveland Museum of Art, 1999-2000, no. 2, repro.

2011

  • Impressionist and Post-Impressionist Masterpieces from the National Gallery of Art, The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; The National Art Center, Tokyo; Kyoto Municipal Museum of Art, 2011, no. 2, repro.

2015

  • Delacroix and the Rise of Modern Art, Minneapolis Institute of Art; National Gallery, London, 2015-2016, no. 67, repro.

2016

  • Frédéric Bazille (1841-1870) and The Birth of Impressionism, Musée Fabre, Montpelier; Musée d'Orsay, Paris; National Gallery of Art, Washington, 2016-2017, no. 61, repro.

2018

  • Posing Modernity: The Black Model from Manet and Matisse to Today, Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery, Columbia University, New York; Musée d'Orsay, Paris, 2018-2019, fig. 77.

Bibliography

1985

  • European Paintings: An Illustrated Catalogue. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1985: 38, repro.

1991

  • Kopper, Philip. America's National Gallery of Art: A Gift to the Nation. New York, 1991: 280, color repro.

1992

  • National Gallery of Art, Washington. National Gallery of Art, Washington, 1992: 188, repro.

  • Daulte, François. Frédéric Bazille et les débuts de l'impressionisme. Paris, 1992:no. 60, repro.

1993

  • Bajou, Valérie. Frédéric Bazille 1841-1870. Aix-en-Provence, 1993:175,177-178, repro. 167

1995

  • Schulman, Michel. Frédéric Bazille 1841-1870: Catalogue raisonné. Paris, 1995:no. 61, repro.

1998

  • Pitman, Dianne W. Bazille: Purity, Pose, and Painting in the 1860s. The Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998: 179-193, repro. no. 118.

Inscriptions

upper right: F. Bazille. / 1870

Wikidata ID

Q20188736

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