The work was entitled Hollyhock Flowers, but the apple flower with its specific petals and leaves.
Grigorescu painted flowers in the pot since his training period in Barbizon, studied as still lives in interiors, and later, during the course of his work, he implanted his easel en plein air to also capture flowering orchards and flowers in the gardens, motifs affected by the Impressionist painters.
Several works entitled Apple Flowers, Blooming Apple Tree, Hollyhock Flowers, Eglantine were included in Grigorescu’s personal exhibitions opened in 1895 – 1904. They belong to the theme of the white period. After the death of the artist, many of these remained in the workshop of his house in Câmpina, some of them being acquired by purchase in 1910 at the State Pinacotheca, while others remained for a while in the family’s possession. We can remind as variations of our painting the undated floral boards from MNAR, Apple Flowers, (53 x 24 cm; inv. 69689/7629), Branch with apple flowers (45 x 16.8 cm; inv. 104178/10570), etc.
Grigorescu painted flowers, often in gardens, in quick sketches, masterfully executed. The representation of the plant-flora world, as an expression of the vitality of nature, of the extravaganza of colourful whites, brought joy to the artist. In this regard, we have the testimony of an eyewitness, architect Henriette Delavrancea Gibory (1897 – 1987), passed to posterity through her eldest sister, Cella Delavrancea (1887 – 1991), the famous pianist, author of the below text. Her memory dates back to the time when they were children and they met Grigorescu, around 1900, in the summer, at the seaside: “In Constanța, at the Sturdza Palace, where Vlahuță and Grigorescu lived.
I remember that our painter was cheerful, relaxed like I had never seen him. The summer kitchen was in the courtyard with many tall blooming hollyhocks.
[…] My younger sister [Henriette] told me that, hidden after a bush with Anișoara [Vlahuță], they watched for a long time Grigorescu painting the hollyhocks, profiled against the intense blue sky of the Black Sea. She did not forget his swift and precise movements, the escaping nervousness of the act of creation. They held their breath and saw, rising on the canvas, the living, lasting life, defying the floral ephemeral […]. He drew by painting.”1
1 Cella Delavrancea, “Pictorul Nicolae Grigorescu” in Scrieri, edition, preface, notes, comments and bibliography by Valeriu Râpeanu, Ed. Eminescu, Bucharest 1982, p. 366-367.
