La statue aux deux vases rouges

La statue aux deux vases rouges, painted in 1908 and now in the Musée Cantini, shows Dufy incorporating decorative sculptural and domestic objects into his L'Estaque compositions. The red vases, vivid against the Mediterranean landscape or garden setting, anticipate his later career's habitual use of strong chromatic accents within otherwise tonally restrained compositions. The statue subject — garden ornament placed within a landscape — gave Dufy a fixed, legible form to set against the more ambiguous patterns of foliage and architecture.

Oil on canvas. The red vases function as chromatic focal points, their saturated colour contrasting with the more muted surrounding palette. Dufy's treatment of the sculptural form shows his interest in defining three-dimensional objects through contour line rather than tonal modelling — a tendency that would intensify in his later work.