Still Life of Roses, Glass Pitcher and Bowl

The present work is a rare still-life painting by Childe Hassam, painted around 1888-90. While Hassam often included still-life vignettes within his figurative or interior paintings, he did not often paint independent still lifes until his later years in East Hampton. Still Life of Roses, Glass Pitcher and Bowl is an exception, along with the closely related Roses in a Vase (1890, The Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland). H. Barbara Weinberg writes of the latter work, "The delicate Roses in a Vase, perhaps painted at the Isles of Shoals during June—New England's Months of Roses—reiterates the colorful bouquets in clear glass vases that appeared in Mrs. Hassam and Her Sister [1889, Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois] and anticipates the sumptuous flower-filled glass vases Hassam would depict in The Room of Flowers [1894, Private Collection]. It also revises with an Impressionist's palette the many still-life paintings of roses that Hassam's new friend J. Alden Weir made during the 1880s. Here, with an Impressionist's delight in capturing transparency and reflections, Hassam portrayed a vase of pale yellow roses...the fragile roses with drooping stems, fallen blossoms, and scattered petals." (Childe Hassam: American Impressionist, New York, 2004, pp. 239-40) The dynamic brushwork and ephemeral nature of the flowers create a composition that feels of-the-moment while demonstrating Hassam's mastery of Impressionism across subject matter.