The Vase of Tulips

The Vase of Tulips — Paul Cézanne. c. 1890.

Medium: Oil on canvas. Dimensions: 59.6 × 42.3 cm (23 1/2 × 16 5/8 in.); Framed: 84.5 × 67 × 10.2 cm (33 1/4 × 26 3/8 × 4 in.).

Collection record: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago. Museum connection according to this source; current display unverified.

The table in this still life of flowers and fruit appears in several of Paul Cezanne’s other paintings, although scholars do not agree about which of the artist’s residences housed this piece of furniture. As is typical of Cezanne’s work, the painting is carefully considered and the composition hard won: the traces of at least three other pieces of fruit (presumably oranges) at lower left and near the vase attest to the artist’s changing opinion as he struggled to make the arrangement work. Even in the final version, there remains a tense spatial relationship between the objects, which seem to float in the picture plane rather than being anchored to the tabletop.

Description: © Art Institute of Chicago, original record, CC BY 4.0. HTML formatting removed; wording retained. Other artwork metadata: CC0.

Source: official collection record. Metadata selected and normalized by Artline from the source export, accessed 10 September 2026; no museum endorsement. Reproduction rights are separate.