Vincent has just arrived in Provence and is in the midst of a wintery February and March as Arles experiences a late snowfall in 1888.  His first two weeks in the south of France are bitterly cold.  The weather hampers his ability to work outside even though he came for relief from an unseasonably cold winter in Paris where work has begun on the foundation for the Eiffel Tower in advance of the World’s Fair in 1889.

Vincent has taken a room above the Restaurant Carrel at 30 Rue Cavalerie and will move in the coming months to his envisioned artist’s studio of the south – the yellow house where Gauguin will join him for about 2 months in late 1888. Vincent paints the views along his street and stays indoors for much of the first few weeks in Arles. He waits for Spring to arrive in earnest, and stays indoors or nearby when he paints the Related Items around the same time as the Blossoming Almond Branch.

Vincent is not in good health upon his arrival in Arles due to his routine use of tobacco, absinthe and wine to excess in the cabarets and cafes of Montmartre.  He is looking to live a healthier, more austere lifestyle as he recuperates in the sunlight of Provence. He is also hoping to find the colors of Monticelli and Delacroix, two painters Vincent admires deeply.  He is close to the abbey at Montmajour and  just across the crau to Aix en Provence, the land of Zola and Cezanne and Monticelli’s beloved Marseille to the south.  Vincent has been asked to participate in the Salon des Independants coming in late Spring of 1888 and he and Theo are deciding which of his works from his Paris canvases they should submit.

Vincent ventures outside on a cold pre-spring morning through the orchards surrounding the small and ancient roman town of Arles.  He brings home a sprig of blossoming almond and puts it in a glass of water on a table before a gray brown background .  He adds a cadmium red stripe balancing the table edge above and below the centerline and the flowers of the blossom are placed in the top half of the composition.  The table is viewed head-on from slightly above with horizontal and diagonal strokes of lighter yellow, green and white comprising the table’s top.

The arrangement of the almond cutting and the glass containing it cast a light blue shadow which is repeated in one of the lower blossoms as well as on the table in diagonal strokes from lower left to upper right.  The branch is of shades of green with lateral curved strokes of a pale yellow repeated in the white blossoms. The piece has the feel of Japan to it.  And Vincent has chosen a piece of spring along the lines of the great Japanese woodblock artists in his composition of a Blossoming Almond Branch and his rendition has the feel of one of the ukiyo-e prints he and Theo collected and treasured.

The painting hangs today in the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

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Writing to his brother after just arriving in Arles from Paris:

So far I’ve taken no more than a little walk round the town, as I was more or less completely done in last night.  I’ll write to you soon — an antique dealer whose shop I went into yesterday in this very street was telling me he knew of a Monticelli.

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To Theo. Arles, on or about Friday, 2 March 1888

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To Theo. Arles, on or about Friday, 16 March 1888

Painting, Oil on Canvas – 24 x 19 cm Size 2 Figure
Arles, France: March 1, 1888
Van Gogh Museum
Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Europe
F: 392, JH: 1361