Still Life: Vase with Five Sunflowers

The first canvases in Van Gogh's celebrated sunflower series were produced at Arles in August 1888, painted specifically to decorate Paul Gauguin's room in the Yellow House before the older painter's expected arrival. Van Gogh wrote to Theo and to Gauguin himself about his vision: sunflowers as symbols of gratitude and solar devotion, their progressively wilting heads arranged to show the full arc from blossom to seed-head as a meditation on abundance and decay. This version, painted on a wood panel — the only one of the series not on canvas — was destroyed in Japan during World War II, making it known only through photographs and documentary records. The technical peculiarity of the panel support would have given the paint surface a rigidity and smoothness quite different from canvas, though Van Gogh's thick, vigorous impasto technique remained unchanged across supports. The loss of this panel during wartime adds an additional layer of historical poignancy to a work that was already rare in his catalogue.

The lost painting was known for its blazing, high-keyed yellows in multiple tones — from pale lemon to deep gold — deployed with the thick impasto characteristic of the Arles sunflower series. Flowers at various stages of opening and decay were arranged to create chromatic gradation. The panel support would have given the paint surface a different texture compared to the canvas versions.