Description
A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers shows an enormous bunch of asters and chrysanthemums in a green earthenware vase, filling the left two thirds of the canvas, and a woman at the right edge who rests her chin on a gloved hand and looks away to the side. Beside the vase stands a glass jug, and on the table lies the crumpled brown paper the flowers were wrapped in. As a canvas painting this is a landscape-format scene in which the flowers, not the person, are the main event. The original is oil on canvas and is held in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York under the inventory number 29.100.128. We make it as a hand-painted work on linen, in sizes from 50 x 40 to 180 x 150 cm or to your own measurements, and you receive a photograph of the finished work for approval before dispatch.
| Title: | A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers |
| Other titles: | La Femme aux chrysanthèmes |
| Painter: | Edgar Degas (1834–1917) |
| Year of execution: | 1865 |
| Original size: | 73,7 cm x 92,7 cm |
| Original technique: | Oil on canvas |
| Painting style: | Impressionism |
| Located at: | Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York (inv. no. 29.100.128) |
| Our reproduction: | hand-painted oil on linen canvas, 7 sizes from 50 x 40 cm to 180 x 150 cm, custom sizes on request |
A Woman Seated beside a Vase of Flowers – Edgar Degas
Who is shown?
A single woman, unnamed, and placed where people usually do not go: at the right edge, where the edge of the canvas partly cuts her off. She sits at the table, her elbow resting on it, her chin in a gloved hand. On her head she wears a white lace cap with a dark band, at her neck a dark scarf, and her dress is ochre brown with ruffles. A small flower is pinned at her wrist and a ring shows on her finger. She looks off to the side and past the flowers – not at us, and not at the bunch.
What is on the canvas?
The left two thirds are taken by an enormous bunch: dozens of asters, chrysanthemums and daisies in white, pink, violet, blue, red, orange and yellow, so densely packed that the eye can barely hold a single bloom. It stands in a bellied, green-glazed earthenware vase. To its left is a clear glass jug of water, and in front of that, on the table, lies crumpled brown paper – the wrapping the flowers arrived in. The table is covered with an olive-green cloth through which a reddish ground shows. At the back left is a wall with a small floral pattern, at the back right a window with greenish light. At the lower left, in reddish paint, stand the year and the signature.
Why does this particular scene matter?
Because Degas does what is inadmissible in a portrait: he puts the person at the edge and lets her be cut off, and gives the main place to the plants. The scene is a still life and a portrait at once, and neither is subordinate to the other. That arrangement was unheard of at the time and is the most modern thing on the canvas today – it is what a photograph taken without preparation looks like. The bunch is not decoration: it is painted with a seriousness you would expect for a face.
What does the scene mean?
Absence. The woman sits beside the flowers but does not look at them; her thoughts are elsewhere, and Degas does not explain it. Impressionism for him always meant a cutting caught as the eye sees it and not as composition arranges it; an impressionist painting of this kind therefore reads as a moment that happened in passing. As wall art it carries a room through colour – there is so much of it here that the scene stays bright even on a dark wall.
The motif among Degas’s works
Degas liked to set a person among objects. The Collector of Prints shows the same procedure reversed: there the person is in the middle, surrounded by his sheets. Lorenzo Pagans and Auguste De Gas puts two people in a dark room with a score, and Hilaire de Gas is a stern single portrait with no object at all. How Degas looked at a woman among wares is shown by The Millinery Shop at the Art Institute of Chicago, and how he looked at himself by the Self-Portrait in the same collection.
How is our hand-painted version made?
With a brush and oil colours, not a printer, and here the technique of the original is the same as ours. Every one of our canvases is made layer after layer, and in this scene it is the bunch that is demanding: several hundred individual blooms that must each stay separate, or the mass turns into a gaudy porridge. The painter therefore builds from the dark leaves outwards to the pale heads and lays on the brightest white and yellow strokes only at the end. Every reproduction is made afresh and no two copies are ever quite the same, because the hand does not repeat the same stroke twice; every hand-painted copy is therefore its own. For this work we have no photographs of our finished canvases, so we show and describe none here. The photograph of your canvas reaches you before dispatch.
Which size for which wall?
If you do not know which: 90 x 70 cm – that size comes nearest in size to the original, which measures 73,7 x 92,7 cm. The 50 x 40 and 60 x 50 cm sizes are for a smaller room or a hallway, where the individual blooms already become hard to tell apart. The 70 x 60 and 80 x 65 cm sizes suit a chest of drawers or a dining room. The 100 x 80 cm size belongs above a sofa and is the closest to the original’s proportion. At 180 x 150 cm we are at the sizes where a large painting really breathes and the bunch is close to life size; that is the size for a long, empty wall. Measure your chosen size on the wall with a paper cut-out first; with a landscape format the mistake is usually made in the width. None of the sizes is held in stock as a finished item: every copy is made to order and stays a single piece.
Custom size, stretcher bar and frame
If none of the seven sizes suits your wall, we paint to your measurements and keep the proportions of the scene, so that the bunch keeps its two thirds and the woman at the right edge does not fall off the canvas; that is our painting made to order. Every copy is delivered stretched on a wooden bar, ready to hang. For the frame, use our 3D application: on this motif it shows every moulding profile we carry, so you can compare gold, silver, black, white and natural wood – it is for choosing a frame and nothing else. If you want to see how the work looks on your own wall, that is our separate room-placement service.
Delivery and guarantee
Every copy is made to order in our studio, so allow 15 to 45 days depending on the size you choose; for the largest sizes the time is usually at the upper end. We send it stretched and protected for transport, framed if you chose a frame, to sixteen countries in the European Union, without customs duties. You receive a photograph of the finished work for approval before dispatch, and our returns policy applies to every order. The whole range is in the Edgar Degas gallery, and the painter’s life is described in our article about Edgar Degas.
Frequently asked questions
Who is the woman in the scene?
She is not named. She sits at the table, rests her chin on a gloved hand and looks off to the side.
Why is she cut off by the edge?
Because Degas gave the main place to the flowers. The cut at the right edge is a deliberate decision, not a mistake.
What flowers are in the vase?
Asters, chrysanthemums and daisies in white, pink, violet, blue, red, orange and yellow, very densely set.
What is the crumpled paper on the table?
The wrapping the flowers arrived in. It lies beside the glass jug of water.
What is written at the lower left?
The year and the signature, both in reddish paint on the edge of the table.
Where is the original located?
In the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, under the inventory number 29.100.128.
How large is the original?
73,7 by 92,7 cm, so wider than it is tall. Our 90 x 70 cm size comes nearest to it in size.
Is this a print?
No. The work is painted by hand in oil colours; the brushstrokes are visible and can be felt.
Which size should I choose?
Above a chest of drawers usually 90 x 70 cm, for a smaller room 60 x 50 cm. The size guide is above.
Can I have a size that is not listed?
Yes, we paint to measure and keep the proportions of the scene while doing it.
Is it suitable as a gift?
Yes, especially for someone who likes flowers and strong colour. Because every copy is made to order, allow for the making time; if you would rather leave the choice to them, there is our gift voucher.
- Subject: an enormous bunch of asters and chrysanthemums in a green vase at the left, a woman at the right edge with her chin on her hand, a glass jug and crumpled wrapping on the table
- Original: Edgar Degas, an oil painting on canvas, 73,7 x 92,7 cm, Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (29.100.128)
- Ours: hand-painted in oil, seven sizes from 50 x 40 to 180 x 150 cm, stretched and framed on request
- Worth knowing: Degas pushed the person to the edge and let her be cut off, giving the main place to the flowers – unheard of for a portrait of that time
