Bowl with Zinnias and Other Flowers

After working as an art dealer, schoolteacher and missionary, Van Gogh decided to become an artist in 1880 and spent several years painting and sketching in the Netherlands. Intrigued by the Impressionists, he moved to Paris in March 1886 and lived with his brother Theo, an art dealer. This work is among a group of still lifes painted that summer in which Van Gogh shed the darker palette of his Dutch period and explored colour theories then current among the Parisian avant-garde.