Best known for his elegant drypoint representations of beautiful young women and children. Helleu began his artistic training in 1876 with Jean-Léon Gérôme at the École des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He soon became one of the most successful portraitists of the Belle Époque, moving in fashionable circles, and forming close friendships with such contemporaries as James Tissot, American-born painters James Abbott McNeill Whistler and John Singer Sargent, and Impressionists Edgar Degas and Claude Monet. Helleu also traveled to America on three occasions. During his second visit to New York in 1912, he was commissioned to design the ceiling of the Great Hall in Grand Central Station in which he included stars, planets, and the Milky Way against a deep blue background. Here, large white blooms, resembling peonies, are loosely arranged in a crystal vase. A rich, fluid application of paint defines the foliage and the blossoms with each flower seemingly at a different stage in its life cycle. The simplicity of the composition, economy of color, and play of subtle light contribute to a work of great elegance and beauty.