Jimson weed appears in Georgia O'Keeffe's record-setting painting sold in 2014.
The work is titled Jimson Weed/White Flower No. 1, painted in 1932. It depicts a large white jimson weed flower against a dark background, using the close-up scale and simplified forms associated with O'Keeffe's flower paintings. At a Sotheby's auction in November 2014, it sold for $44.4 million, including fees.
That sale made it the most expensive painting by a female artist at auction at the time. It also became one of the clearest examples of how O'Keeffe's familiar botanical subjects could command an extraordinary market price.
Jimson weed is the common name for Datura, a plant genus containing toxic species. The title is sometimes shortened in casual references, but the specific painting title includes “White Flower No. 1.” It should not be confused with O'Keeffe's Black Iris series or her many paintings of poppies and other flowers.