Vase with flowers

After a training period at the Llotja school, Francesc Lacoma obtained a scholarship to complete his education in Paris with Gerard van Spaendonck. In that city, where he would remain until his death, he became a recognised specialist in the genre of still life. In addition Lacoma played an important part in the recovery of many of the artistic items, paintings in the main, that had been pillaged by Napoleonic troops during the Spanish War of Independence. Thanks to this intervention he obtained the title of Chamber painter of King Ferdinand VII in 1819.

Although Vase with Flowers was painted in Paris in 1805, Lacoma decided to postpone its public showing until 1810, when it was exhibited in that year's Salon, in which the artist obtained a Gold Medal in recognition of his skills.

The canvas constitutes one of the paradigmatic displays of the activity undertaken by Lacoma during these years of work, and reveals the use of a figurative language that is lacking in neither conventions nor the stereotypical formulae of a genre of this type. Having said that, the final result is of an extraordinary quality and a captivating artistic beauty, to the extent that the picture may, without any misgivings whatsoever, be considered one of the finest examples that the MNAC possesses of an historic moment in which the imagery of the still life was entering a phase of gradual decline.

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