Van Gogh painted this bed of irises in May 1889, in his first weeks at the asylum of Saint-Paul-de-Mausole in Saint-Rémy, working outdoors in its walled garden. The cropped view and broad areas of colour owe much to the Japanese prints he collected. Theo showed it at the Salon des Indépendants that September; in 1987 it set a world auction record.
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A pollen cone from the garden's umbrella pines is stuck in the paint. Many petals now read blue because the red in their original violet has faded.
Looks like this
Compared by a vision model
