Three Sunflowers in a Vase

Van Gogh's Three Sunflowers in a Vase, painted at Arles in 1888, belongs to the series of sunflower studies he made in preparation for and alongside the great Sunflowers canvases he intended as decorations for Gauguin's room. Three flowers in various stages of bloom and decay gave him a smaller-scale study that explored the range of states within a single species. The sunflower series is among the most celebrated in his oeuvre, and this three-flower version represents one of the more intimate treatments. The work is currently in a private collection.

Three sunflowers are rendered individually within a single composition, their different stages of bloom — opening, full, fading — giving chromatic and formal variety. Van Gogh's impasto is rich in the flower heads, thick ridges of yellow and orange building physical presence. The vase grounds the composition, its simple form contrasting with the elaborate flower heads above.