Bouquet in a Jug

The presented floral still life ranks among the finest works of Václav Špála from the mid-1930s, a period during which he devoted himself intensely to bouquets, developing the subject through extraordinarily rich variations in both colour and composition.

The painting depicts a blossoming arrangement of tulips and small white elderflowers in a jug placed at the edge of a table. The dominant role is played by the vivid yellow blooms, whose luminous intensity draws the beholder’s attention and determines the painting’s overall colour character. The brilliant flowers are set against deep expanses of royal blue in the background, a hallmark of the artist’s work. The decorated jug, rendered almost as a flat surface, acts as a firm compositional anchor from which not only the organic motif of the bouquet develops dynamically, but also the background itself. This is composed of several landscape paintings, Špála’s own works, hanging on or leaning against the wall, creating a remarkable interplay between the intimate space of the studio and the painterly imagination of the landscape. The canvas in the foreground is even signed, introducing an additional layer of meaning into the composition.

According to the catalogue raisonné of Václav Špála’s work, two closely related paintings of identical format and similar composition were created in May 1934, painted only days apart (one on 12 May, the other on 14 May). This still life, which was at some point in the past re-stretched onto a new stretcher frame, can with a high degree of probability be identified as one of them. Both works had already been recorded in important private collections at the time of their creation. The first painting belonged to Mr Rottenberg, the second to Dr Kryška. Špála described both works in identical terms: “Bouquet in a jug, yellow tulips, pink-red tulips, white elderflowers with a violet hue, in a jug, three paintings in the background, below a Carpathian blanket”, one numbered 779 and the other 780 (E. Burget, R. Musil: Václav Špála, Catalogue Raisonné /1885–1946/, Prague, 2002, p. 80).

During consultations, the work was assessed by Professor J. Zemina and PhDr. R. Michalová, PhD. An expert opinion of PhDr. K. Srp is attached (quoted: “[…] Špála perfectly balanced harmony and disharmony to achieve a mutually penetrating interplay of colours, giving it a distinctive, timeless character. […]”).