Renoir began his career painting flowers on porcelain for the Sèvres workshop, and as an established painter he would often turn to floral still lifes or overgrown gardens as the ideal subject for technical experimentation. “What seems most significant to me about our movement” he stated of Impressionism, “is that we have freed painting from the importance of the subject. I am at liberty to paint flowers and call them flowers, without their needing to tell a story.” (Pierre-Auguste Renoir quoted in Peter Mitchell, European Flower Painters, London, 1973, pp. 211-212). The infinite variety and deceptive simplicity of his flower paintings proved incredibly popular among contemporary buyers. Renoir’s brushwork was rarely constrained, and the present fragment displays the same exuberance and intuitive understanding of color that define his best portraits and landscapes.