La marchande de fleurs
A woman in a red blouse stands on a Paris pavement holding a baby wrapped in blue. A second figure sits behind a wicker basket packed with flowers, in front of a bakery whose red and white awning runs across the picture. Kiki de Montparnasse dedicated the canvas to a friend at the lower right and signed it Kiki. Millon sold it in Paris on 13 June 2024.
- Undated
- Oil on its original canvas
About Kiki de Montparnasse
What the painting shows
Two figures hold the left half of the canvas. The nearer one wears a dark red blouse with full sleeves and a long black skirt, her brown hair drawn back, and she carries a baby against her chest. The baby is wrapped in blue with a pink cap, and one small hand shows above the cloth.
Behind the basket sits a second figure in a blue-grey coat, with long black hair falling either side of a narrow face. The reproduction is too small to say how old that figure is. A large wicker basket stands in front of her, filled with red, pink, white and yellow flowers over green leaves.
The right half is a shop. A striped awning of red and white runs across it under a scalloped red valance, and long golden loaves are stacked in rows behind the glass. A grey fascia above the awning carries pale gold capitals; only the first two, A and LA, can be read in the reproduction.
A tall pale poster stands at the left edge with black lettering on it, of which SCA is legible. A bare-branched tree with small green leaves crosses the top of the canvas. The pavement is ruled into flagstones, and a round grey disc lies under the standing woman's feet.
The canvas is 41 by 27 centimetres and is still on its original stretcher. Millon records a torn label on the back. The catalogue photograph shows the painting inside a carved and silvered frame, which is how it is reproduced here.
Flowers in front of bread
The title names the flower seller, and the flowers are the brightest thing in the picture. They are also the smallest part of it. The basket occupies the lower centre, and everything above and behind it is the bakery: the awning, the valance, the fascia and the loaves.
Kiki de Montparnasse painted street trade more than once. The Acrobat of 1927 sets a dancer in front of a fairground crowd, and Gitans of 1928 puts a halted caravan at the edge of a field. The eye in each is level with the people rather than above them.
The handling is the same throughout her painting. Outlines are drawn first and filled with flat colour, faces are built from a few dark marks, and nothing recedes. The loaves are drawn as ovals on a shelf, the flagstones as ruled boxes, the awning as alternating bands.
A picture given to a friend
The inscription at the lower right is a dedication rather than a title. Millon reads it as A mon ami Dausse, followed by the signature Kiki. The words sit over the painted flagstones in a thin dark script, and the reproduction does not resolve them well enough to confirm the name.
Alice Prin — Kiki de Montparnasse was the name Montparnasse gave her — sold paintings at only three exhibitions in her life, in 1927, 1930 and 1931. Billy Klüver and Julie Martin record those shows in the standard account of the quarter. A dedicated canvas left her hands another way.
Her Souvenirs, published by Henri Broca in Paris in 1929, reproduced twenty of her paintings. The De Baecque catalogue that described a copy in 2018 lists what the book carried, including those twenty reproductions and ten photographs by Man Ray. No published list of the twenty names this canvas.
Where it has been
Millon offered the painting in Paris on 13 June 2024, as lot 246 of Petites Oeuvres de Grands Maîtres — Tableaux du XIXe et XXe siècle, held at the Salons du Trocadéro. The estimate was 3,000 to 4,000 euros.
The house has not published a result for the lot, and its individual lot page for the sale now refuses access. The catalogue itself remains downloadable from Millon as a single PDF, and that document is the source for the description, the dimensions and the inscription.
No museum holds it. No public collection is known to hold any painting by Kiki de Montparnasse.
Close reading
Reading the work, detail by detail
The only reproduction that exists is the auction house's catalogue photograph, and it is small: 581 by 734 pixels, taken with the painting still in its frame. At that size the flat colour and the drawn outlines hold, and the lettering and the handwriting do not. The views below stay at low magnification and say where the picture stops resolving.
1.The tree across the top
A single trunk rises from behind the figures and breaks into thin branches that cross the whole width. The leaves are dabs of two greens laid along the branches, and the sky behind them is scrubbed blue over grey.
2.The shop fascia
The fascia is lettered in pale gold capitals on grey. Only the first word, A, and the letters LA that follow it can be read at this size. The rest is a row of separate strokes that the reproduction does not resolve into words.
3.The striped awning
The awning is painted as flat vertical bands with no shading and no fold. A red valance runs under it in a continuous scallop, drawn as one wavy line rather than as separate flaps.
4.The bread in the window
Each loaf is a single ochre oval with a darker line down it, and they are stacked in rows rather than set back in a window. A pale card at the right carries writing and a crossed mark, neither of them legible in the reproduction.
5.The poster at the left
The poster is the only other lettering in the painting. SCA reads clearly at the top; below it the lines break down into dashes. A dark hood or bracket juts over the top of it from the wall.
6.The woman and the baby
The woman is the largest figure and she is painted without a single highlight: red blouse, black skirt, brown hair drawn back, a face built from four dark marks. The baby's cap is the one pink note in the left half.
7.The second figure
The second figure is drawn smaller and set back, with long black hair and a narrow face. The reproduction does not resolve enough of the features to say how old she is, and the catalogue does not say either.
8.The basket of flowers
The flowers are the brightest passage in the painting and the smallest. They are laid in as separate dabs of red, pink, yellow and white over green, with the crosshatched weave of the basket drawn underneath them.
9.The dedication
The inscription is written in a thin dark line over the pavement, in two lines with the signature at the end. It is indistinct at this size: Millon reads it as A mon ami Dausse followed by Kiki, and the reproduction cannot confirm the name.
Timeline
1927
Kiki de Montparnasse exhibits her own paintings for the first time, at the Galerie au Sacre du Printemps in Paris in March; the show sells out.
1929
Souvenirs appears from Henri Broca in Paris, reproducing twenty of her paintings alongside ten photographs by Man Ray.
2024
Offered at Millon in Paris on 13 June as lot 246, estimated at 3,000 to 4,000 euros.
Where to see it
A viewing location has not yet been listed for this work.
Frequently asked questions
Who painted La marchande de fleurs?
Kiki de Montparnasse — Alice Prin — painted it and signed it Kiki at the lower right. She is usually met as the model in other artists' pictures, and the atlas files this one under her as the artist.
What does La marchande de fleurs show?
A woman in a red blouse holding a baby wrapped in blue, and a second figure seated behind a wicker basket of red, pink, white and yellow flowers. Behind them a bakery window shows rows of long golden loaves under a red and white striped awning.
Is La marchande de fleurs dated?
Millon catalogues the lower right inscription as dedicated, signed and dated, but the catalogue text gives no year and the reproduction is too small to read one. The atlas therefore records the painting as undated rather than assert a year it cannot cite.
Who was the painting given to?
Millon reads the dedication as A mon ami Dausse. The catalogue does not say who Dausse was, and nothing else in the record identifies him. The words are written in thin dark script over the painted pavement at the lower right.
How big is La marchande de fleurs?
41 by 27 centimetres, oil on its original canvas, upright. Millon records a torn label on the reverse. The catalogue photograph shows it in a carved and silvered frame.
How much did La marchande de fleurs sell for?
Millon has not published a result. The estimate was 3,000 to 4,000 euros at the sale of 13 June 2024. Her auction record belongs to a different picture, The Acrobat of 1927, which made 19,275 euros at FauveParis in 2021.
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References
The sources below include collection records, catalogues, scholarly research, and primary materials that informed this page. They document La marchande de fleurs, its making, and its place in cultural history.
1Kiki de Montparnasse, La marchande de fleurs — lot 246, Petites Oeuvres de Grands Maîtres: Tableaux du XIXe et XXe siècle, 13 June 2024
WebsiteMillon, 2024Used forAuction catalogue for the painting: title, medium, dimensions, the dedication read as A mon ami Dausse, the torn label on the reverse and the estimate.
2Kiki's Paris: Artists and Lovers 1900–1930
BiographyHarry N. Abrams, 1989Used forThe standard account of Montparnasse and of her three exhibitions as a painter.
3Kiki et le Montparnasse des années 1930 — Arts africains, sale catalogue, Drouot-Richelieu, 21 September 2018
Exhibition catalogueDe Baecque et associés and Lynda Trouvé, Paris, 2018Used forDescribes a copy of Souvenirs and lists reproductions of twenty paintings by the author among its contents.
4Kiki, Reine de Montparnasse — exhibition, 1 April to 30 December 2026
WebsiteMusée du Pays Châtillonnais – Trésor de Vix, Châtillon-sur-Seine, 2026Used forThe 2026 exhibition in her birthplace, which shows her own paintings and drawings alongside the portraits of her.
These references provide the documented foundation for this work's history and interpretation. Claim-level citations remain attached to the specific claims they support.
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