Vase with Irises — Vincent van Gogh, 1890, Postcard

Among the flower paintings Van Gogh made in his final weeks at Saint-Rémy, this vase of irises is among the quieter ones — the palette cooler and more restrained than the yellow-background version made at the same time. A still life that belongs to the farewell to the asylum garden, when the plants he had observed for a year became subject and subject again. A postcard for a flower collection, a quiet desk, or a late-period Van Gogh study. From the Vincent van Gogh collection.