When the Franco-Prussian War erupted in 1870, Monticelli returned permanently to Marseille, devoting himself to a life of painting and poverty in the provinces. Our work is an excellent example of this later style, which saw a change in subject matter from Romantic portraits and landscapes to still lifes of flowers. Tragically, Monticelli's relative isolation in the south and his distance from the major artistic developments then underway in Paris contributed to his marginalization within later histories of nineteenth-century art.

Shortly after his move to Paris in 1886, Vincent van Gogh became familiar with Monticelli’s work, most likely in Joseph Delarebeyrette’s gallery. In this year he painted Vase with Zinnias and Other Flowers, a work that is demonstrative of his newfound admiration for Monticelli’s flower paintings.

Vincent’s letters to his brother Theo, who owned one of Monticelli’s still life paintings, are full of reverential comments about the painter, in particular his use of vibrant color and heavily impasto. This is echoed in a series of works van Gogh completed during his time in Paris. 

After two years in Paris, van Gogh relocated to the South of France, where he developed his distinctive personal style in the last years of his life. Though the compositional qualities, brushwork, and overall aesthetic evolved into the van Gogh we think of today, echoes of Monticelli still exist in each work.