In a garden dense with flowers, a young man offers roses to a woman who turns away but does not fully flee. The scene belongs to a series about love’s stages, and everything seems to bloom with implication. The garden is not background. It is desire made botanical, abundant, arranged, and unruly.

Oil on canvas with vigorous brushwork, lush foliage, and dynamic figure movement. Designed as decorative panels for an aristocratic interior.

Roses signal love and sensual pursuit. The garden suggests cultivated nature, where desire is both controlled and encouraged.

Commissioned for Madame du Barry, Louis XV’s mistress, the series was later rejected, revealing changing tastes and court politics.

Its decorative unity of environment and emotion influenced later interior painting and romantic garden imagery.