Grapes and an Apple (Alternative Title: Grapes and Apples (1870); Raisin Blanc et Pomme Dans une Soucoupe)

Henri Fantin-Latour 1836 - 1904

Summary

Translucent, almost glassy green grapes spill from the edge of a china plate that also contains a large red apple. The dish stands on a plain wooden table, whose surface blends seamlessly into a dark background. The light source, apparently a window just right of centre, is clearly reflected on the glossy fruit. Fantin-Latour studied from the age of ten with his father, Jean-Théodore Fantin-Latour (1805–75). In 1850, at fourteen, he began an apprenticeship in the Paris studio of Horace Lecocq de Boisbaudran, where he spent six years copying from the Old Masters and from nature, which was standard practice in mid-nineteenth-century ateliers. Following a brief spell at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts, he studied briefly with Gustave Courbet, although he would reject the latter's extreme realism. Fantin-Latour sometimes exhibited alongside the Impressionists, but he continued to show his work at the Salon, where his work attracted good reviews. From the 1870s, he developed further his early interest in mythological subjects and music, inspired by Old Master painting, and by the music of Wagner and Berlioz. The lustrous realism of this bowl of fruit recalls both 17th century Dutch still life painting and that of the great 18th century French still life painter, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin (1699-1779).