1628
oil
panel
From the collection of National Gallery of Art
Still Life with Apples, Pears, Cucumbers, Figs, Plums, and a Melon is a 1628 oil by Fede Galizia, a Baroque work, depicting Fruit, held at National Gallery of Art.
This painting shows a table covered with summer fruit: apples, pears, cucumbers, figs, plums, and a melon. The colors pop off the dark background—deep greens, warm reds, and golden yellows. Fede Galizia did this in the 1620s, when still lifes were getting popular in Italy. The fruit looks almost real enough to pick up. Galizia used tiny brushstrokes to show each texture—the fuzzy fig skin, the smooth melon rind. She worked in Milan, where artists were starting to paint everyday objects like this for pleasure, not just religion. Check out another of her works, Still Life with Glasses and a Bowl of Fruit, at the National Gallery of Art, Washington.
Fede Galizia (c. 1578 – c. 1630) was an Italian painter of still-lifes, portraits, and religious pictures. She is especially noted as a painter of still-lifes of fruit, a genre in which she was one of the earliest…
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