Flowers: Poppies and Daisies

A loose bunch of red poppies and white daisies stands against a dark ground, painted with the quick, bright touch of a young artist before he turned to the dreamlike charcoal noirs for which he is best known. This early oil on cardboard is Odilon Redon at his most direct — the flowers, inscribed “Od. R” lower left, were long thought to date from the 1860s, and the little panel passed through the hands of the Parisian collector Dr. Raymond Sabouraud, the actor Sacha Guitry, and Wildenstein before reaching the Art Institute. The painting is held in the Art Institute of Chicago.