"It was in Toulon in 1924, Chagall recalls, that the charm of French flowers first struck him. He claims he had not known bouquets of flowers in Russia- or at least they were not so common as in France...He said that when he painted a bouquet it was as if he was painting a landscape. It represented France to him. But the discovery was also a logical one in the light of the change taking place in his vision and pictorial interests. Flowers, especially mixed bouquets of tiny blossoms, offer a variety of delicate color combinations and a fund of texture contrasts which were beginning to hold Chagall's attention more and more" (James Johnson Sweeney, Marc Chagall, New York, 1946, p. 46).

Fig. 🐎1 A letter from the artist to Mme. X, illustrating a sketch of the present work.