Ignace-Henri-Théodore Fantin-Latour, 'Roses', 1864

In 1864 Henri Fantin-Latour stayed with his wealthy friends, Mr and Mrs Edwin Edwards. The couple were at the centre of the cultural life of London and their large, elegant villa still stands on the bank of the Thames in Sunbury. The artist’s earliest flower paintings were dated 1864, so this may be the first that he made, perhaps gathering roses from the garden leading down to the river. It was certainly the beginning of his popularity as a painter of flowers both in Britain and, later, at home in Paris.

At first glance the bouquet appears to have been quickly bunched into the stubby glass vase in which it stands. Gradually, a careful composition becomes evident. Old English roses seem to hover in the air. The white and palest pink blooms are radiant against a dark background. They are seemingly held in space pinned by the rich yellow circles made by the sepals of two almost spent roses on the left.

In the delicately painted inner circle of flowers, the larger, heavier blooms nestle against dark green leaves, enlivened below by pink buds. To the right, a deep red bud is hardly visible against the shadow, but with the curve of its stalk and light on its sepals it is enough to complete the circle. On the left, white roses lean outwards balanced by the all-important shadow of the bouquet on the wall to the right. The whole rests lightly on the swooping ‘S’ shape achieved by the upward tilt of the opening bud on the left, across to the drooping heads of the smaller rose and the pink bud on the right.

The diagonal line of three white roses at the top of the bouquet has been softened by a cluster of small blue blossoms from a climbing plant. This may be Sollya, a native Australian plant recently imported into England. Now seen in many gardens, in 1864 it would have been a rarity and probably quite expensive, but possibly within reach of the expansive pocket of the Edwards family.

The bouquet stands on a polished mahogany table against rough wallpaper. The texture of the canvas support shows through the paint. The unusual square shape of the sturdy vase is defined by two faint vertical lines and a tiny reflection. An illusion that extends the height of the vase is achieved by a shadowy mirror image on the table top, which disappears out of the picture towards us. This plain, dark background became almost a signature for the artist’s flower portraits. This was a nod to the Aesthetic Movement’s concern with allowing beauty to speak for itself without decoration.

Mr and Mrs Edwards liked Roses so much that they kept it. They also furthered Fantin-Latour’s fortunes by spreading the word about his exceptional talent for flower painting. He became so successful that for some years he painted virtually nothing else. After Edwin’s death, his wife Ruth bequeathed the painting to the Tate Gallery.