For many French artists during the 1860s, the floral still life persisted as a test of pure painterly ability. This exuberant bouquet [...] attests to the artist's engagement with past art historical traditions. He addresses the ennobled Dutch practice of still life through the large scale of his canvas, while his attention to the textures and colors of the arrangement evokes the work of early eighteenth-century French painters like Antoine Watteau and François Boucher.

The painting also demonstrates Renoir's development as an artist. Instead of applying the paint with a palette knife — a technique he borrowed from artists such as Courbet — Renoir adopted a freer and thinner stroke using solely a brush.

Technically, the painting is a tour de force: Renoir juxtaposed solid, almost life-size figures against a landscape that — like a stage set — seems a realm of pure vision and fantasy. The sewing basket in the left foreground evokes a palette, holding the bright, pure pigments that the artist mixed, diluted, and altered to create the rest of the painting. Although the girls were not actually sisters, Renoir's dealer showed the work with this title, [along with others] at the seventh Impressionist exhibition in 1882.