Image: public domain, courtesy of The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Irises

Vincent van Gogh, 1890

Van Gogh painted this bouquet in May 1890, as one of four pictures of spring flowers. He set violet irises against a pink background, but over time that pink has faded to a pale color.

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Did you know?

He painted it just before leaving Saint-Rémy for Auvers-sur-Oise, a village near Paris.
The red in his violet paint has faded too, so the irises now look bluer than he painted them.
Its partner, an upright Irises against a lemon-yellow background, hangs in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.
He planned the four flower pictures, two of irises and two of roses, as a set, like his Sunflowers in Arles.
This painting and its companion Roses belonged to Van Gogh's mother until her death in 1907.
In 2015 the Met showed all four flower paintings together for the first time since 1890, in matching frames.

About the artist

Vincent van Gogh (1853–1890) was born in the Netherlands and worked there, in Paris, in the south of France at Arles and Saint-Rémy, and finally at Auvers-sur-Oise.

In only about ten years as an artist he created hundreds of vibrant paintings, among them Sunflowers, The Starry Night, Irises and The Bedroom.

He wrote more than 800 letters, most of them to his beloved brother Theo, full of warmth and of his joy in color and nature.

Vincent van Gogh ›

Where it is today: The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York · Museum page