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| Willem van Aelst Vase of Flowers 1651 oil on panel Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Albert André Interior with Flowers ca. 1920 oil on cardboard Musée des Augustins de Toulouse |
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| Léon Bonvin Goblet with Violets 1863 watercolor and gouache Walters Art Museum, Baltimore |
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| Rodolphe-Théophile Bosshard Still Life with Tulips ca. 1925 oil on canvas Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Albertus Jonas Brandt Nasturtiums ca. 1813-18 watercolor Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam |
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| Adolphe Braun Flower Study ca. 1854 albumen silver print National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne |
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| Henri-Fantin Latour Flowers and Fruit 1866 oil on canvas Toledo Museum of Art, Ohio |
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| Roger Fenton Fruit and Flowers 1860 albumen print National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| William George Gillies Still Life with Roses ca. 1943 oil on canvas Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh |
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| John La Farge Flowers on a Windowsill ca. 1861 oil on canvas National Gallery of Art, Washington DC |
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| Jacob Marrel Bowl of Flowers ca. 1660 oil on canvas Courtauld Gallery, London |
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| Adolphe Monticelli Vase of Wild Flowers ca. 1870-80 oil on panel National Gallery, London |
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| Odilon Redon Vase of Flowers ca. 1916 pastel Städel Museum, Frankfurt |
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| Gerhard Richter Lilies 2000 oil on canvas National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa |
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| Rachel Ruysch Flowers in a Glass Vase 1700 oil on canvas Mauritshuis, The Hague |
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| Paul-Désiré Trouillebert Bouquet of Violets ca. 1880 oil on canvas Musée Fesch, Ajaccio, Corsica |
Composition
for John Berger
Courbet might have painted this
gigantic head: heavy, yellow
petal-packed bloom of the chrysanthemum.
He would have caught the way
the weight of it looms from the cheap-green
vase this side the window it lolls in.
But he would have missed the space
triangled between stalk and curtain
along a window-frame base.
The opulence of the flower
would have compelled him to ignore
the ship-shape slotted verticals
of the door in the house beyond
dwarfed by the wand of the stem;
and the gate before it would not
have echoed those parallels to his eye
with its slatted wood, its two
neat side-posts of concrete.
The triangle compacts the lot: there
is even room in it for the black
is even room in it for the black
tyre and blazing wheel-hub of a car
parked by the entrance. But the eye
of Courbet is glutted with petals
as solid as meat that press back the sky.
– Charles Tomlinson (1969)