Holding a bunch of peonies in one hand, a woman with brown skin leans forward, toward us from behind a large basket holding dozens of flowers in this horizontal painting. The basket holding the flowers spans the width of the canvas, and the woman is shown behind it from the chest up. She wears a cream-white, long-sleeved blouse with scalloped trim around the high neck. She wears coral-red earrings, and a plaid cloth in tones of rust red, slate blue, pale purple, and black is tied tightly over her black hair, which is visible over her ears. Her brow is slightly furrowed, and she looks at us with large, dark eyes. Her full mouth is closed, the corners faintly downturned. She reaches her right arm, on our left, toward us with a bouquet of three pink-and-white peonies and greenery. Her basket is filled with yellow and red tulips, pink roses, white and purple lilac, and other white, pink, yellow, and blue flowers, and it takes up the bottom third of the composition. The woman and basket are shown against a dove-gray background. The artist prominently signed and dated the work with red letters near the upper right corner, near the woman’s head: “F. Bazille. 1870.”

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   In 1862, Bazille arrived in Paris to study both medicine, at his parents' insistence, and art, his preference. He joined the academic teaching studio run by Charles Gleyre, where he met Monet, Renoir, and Sisley. Attracted by the modernist tendencies of avant–garde art, the four abandoned the studio in favor of direct observation of nature. Working in close harmony, they gradually invented impressionism. Bazille's output was cut short when he was killed in 1870 during the Franco–Prussian War.

   Early in the summer of 1870, before the outbreak of war, Bazille painted two similar works depicting a black woman with a lush array of flowers. Avoiding anecdotal specificity, the woman in the National Gallery painting is posed as a vendor extending a clutch of peonies chosen from her basket laden with seasonal blooms. The proffered peonies, flowers cultivated by Manet and the subject of a series of still lifes he painted in 1864–1865, are firmly portrayed in a manner reminiscent of Manet. Extending his modest tribute to the debonair leader of the avant–garde, Bazille's composition also alludes to one of Manet's most celebrated and notorious works, Olympia (Musée d'Orsay, Paris), in which a black servant offers a floral tribute to a naked prostitute.

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