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An Abundance of Fruit
Severin Roesen (American, born Germany, 1815/17–1872)
c. 1860
- Medium
- Oil on canvas
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 63.5 × 76.2 cm (25 × 30 in.)
- Culture
- Germany
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Arts of the Americas
- Credit line
- Americana Endowment Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Teens profiles and older: its subject is for older viewers (war, death, the Passion, drink or the like). How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This painting by Severin Roesen, who immigrated to the United States from Cologne in 1848, features a profusion of berries, grapes, peaches, figs, and other fruits piled upon a marble slab. His composition is a celebratory display of nature’s bounty— portrayed in such minute detail as to feel artificial. Roesen worked in Pennsylvania, supported by German immigrants who operated local breweries there. While still lifes in the 19th century typically adorned domestic dining rooms, Roesen’s painting may have hung in a public tavern or restaurant. For such patrons, the artist probably painted pictures in exchange for beer. Roesen and his male patrons would not have been counted among the followers of the growing temperance movement in America at midcentury.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
