Giant Peacock Moth, Vincent van Gogh, 1889. I need help identifying the berries in the background!
Vincent van Gogh (1853 - 1890), Saint-Rémy-de-Provence, May-June 1889
oil on canvas, 33.5 cm x 24.5 cm
In May 1889 Vincent wrote to his brother Theo, 'Yesterday I drew a very large, rather rare night moth there which is called the death’s head, its coloration astonishingly distinguished: black, grey, white, shaded, and with glints of carmine or vaguely tending towards olive green; it’s very big. To paint it I would have had to kill it, and that would have been a shame since the animal was so beautiful.'
Later he decided to paint the moth after all, using his drawing as a model. Van Gogh called it a 'death's-head moth' and depicted a kind of skull on the back of its body. It was actually a giant peacock moth, however – a species that has only stripes there
It's a beautiful painting and I'm trying to identify the berries and flowers in the background. The berries look most like winterberries, however they're not native to Europe and wouldn't be present in France in the 19th century.
While the flowers look like calla or peace lillies, that would have been grown in Europe at the time.