Roses
An early still life (1882): red and white roses with glossy foliage, laid directly on bare wood and painted in trompe-l’oeil, with a faint handwritten inscription — a ricordo, a keepsake dedication in the Italian manner of her Rome years.
Intimate “flowers on wood” panels like this were the foundation of the historical still life reputation she built through the 1880s, before the allegorical turn of Mors Imperator. Compare her Royal Collection Trompe l’Oeil with Flowers, painted the following year.
