Bouquet de fleurs au muguet

A cluster of blossoms, stems of lily of the valley among them, stands gathered in a glass on a plain ground — a small, freely brushed still life painted in 1874, the last year of the artist’s life. Its author, Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux, is remembered above all as the great sculptor of the Second Empire, creator of the Dance for the Paris Opéra and pupil of the Romantic sculptor François Rude; but he was also a painter, and this intimate flower piece shows the same naturalistic energy and quickness of hand as his terracottas. The painting is held in the Petit Palais, musée des Beaux-Arts de la Ville de Paris.