Basket of Flowers

Basket of Flowers, painted by Eugène Delacroix between 1848 and 1849, is a vibrant example of the still life genre executed in oil on canvas. Although Delacroix is primarily celebrated for his dramatic Romantic history paintings and literary subjects, this piece demonstrates his consistent engagement with floral motifs throughout his career, often as studies in color and light.

This delicate still life departs from the turbulent narratives typical of Delacroix’s major commissions, focusing instead on the texture and brilliance of the arrangement. The canvas captures a dense, richly colored assortment of flowers spilling from a simple basket. Delacroix’s characteristic use of broken color and energetic brushwork, visible across the blossoms, lends the painting a remarkable sense of immediate spontaneity, anticipating later Impressionistic techniques. The focus is entirely on the visual pleasure derived from the complex interplay of saturated hues, a key element of the artist’s aesthetic theory.

Completed during the mid-nineteenth century, a period of immense social and artistic transition, the work highlights the artist’s private practice of capturing transient beauty. Today, the painting resides within the prestigious collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. Its inclusion in major museum holdings ensures that this pivotal yet less known aspect of Delacroix's output remains available for study. For art enthusiasts and scholars worldwide, high-quality public domain prints of this still life offer accessible views into the varied techniques of this French master.