Although hard to distinguish when looked at in isolation, this lovely red daub is in fact a rose standing out in a bed densely populated with her sisters. The painting is a study of the garden of Daubigny, an artist Van Gogh greatly admired, and with reason. Daubigny was among the first major painters to abandon the atelier and tackle nature in its own territory: the open air. This vibrant and rhythmic composition was painted on a rather unexpected canvas: a tea towel from the Auberge Ravoux, the inn where Van Gogh rented the room in which he would pass away a few weeks later.