These are Gloire de Dijon roses, distinctive for their large blooms, pinkish-apricot colour and fragrant scent. Fantin-Latour brought them indoors to paint in the studio, studying the relationship of different tones. Here he sets the pale pink roses against a neutral, dark background, a device often used by his contemporary Edouard Manet. Fantin-Latour’s still lifes were extremely popular with French and British collectors in the later nineteenth century.