Painted in Edinburgh around 1929, Roses in a Glass Vase radiates with the colour, vibrancy and vitality of Post-Impressionism. As an artist who had a keen eye for the avant-garde and contemporary aesthetic developments, Peploe’s still-lifes reflect his desire to continuously learn and improve. His early works were marked by a dark tonality that reveal the combined influences of both Manet and Dutch masters such as Frans Hals. Turning to white from 1905, Peploe’s practice instead showed traces of Whistler’s famous passion for and experimentation with the colour white. In Edinburgh, Peploe would have seen Whistler’s Symphony in White at the RSA in 1902 and later in a 1904 retrospective. This so-called white period continued until the end of the decade when Peploe’s evolving openness to colour emerged after his direct encounters in Paris in the 1910s with the Fauves, notably Matisse and Derain. Simultaneously, he absorbed the geometry and structure of Cubism from the work of Cézanne and Picasso.

Paris opened a door to the intellectual possibilities within traditional subjects, advancing Peploe’s work and placing him at the forefront of the British avant-garde. At this time, the city and its artistic community were alive to the possibilities of what painting could be in the modern age. Thanks in no small part to the enigmatic Glasgow dealer Alexander Reid, a close friend and patron of Van Gogh and Whistler, Peploe was well received in Paris and spent two years there, working alongside his friend John Duncan Fergusson. Both artists drew deeply from Post-Impressionism and Fauvism: the former gave them structure and technique; the latter the thrill of pure colour set free from nature. Losing the loose, impressionistic, brushstrokes of his earlier still-lifes, his paintings became increasingly bold as he experimented with colour and structure. This climaxed in the 1920s with a sophisticated style that harmonized his experiences of the preceding decades.

By the end of the decade, Peploe was at the peak of both his powers and reputation. In combining modern French aesthetics with a Northern light, Peploe had found a formula which he refined through his own unique sensibility. Roses in a Glass Vase can be understood as the culmination of this process. The off-centre, angular structure of the composition reflects an awareness of photography, most notable in the unusual cropping at the edges of the painting. A relatively restrained palette of red, pink, green, brown and white is given vibrancy by the sharply delineated creases of the napkin and the dark shadows that fall across the table. Peploe draws on the flat yet finely textured brushwork of Cézanne, perhaps most recognisable in the pear resting on the table, while finding chromatic balance in the cooling white light. The work is defined by a restless dynamism, reflecting perhaps his unique approach to the subject. Labouring over the arrangement, sometimes taking several days, he would finally render it in one sitting. This led to perfectly balanced compositions instilled with spontaneity, movement and freshness, as encapsulated in the present work. It is a painting that speaks to the joy of studio life for the modern artist, where everyday things become part of a life less ordinary.