Artwork
Still Life Fruit and Wine Glass
Still Life Fruit and Wine Glass is an oil painting by the Impressionist artist Severin Roesen. It dates from 1868 and is held in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
About this work
A table set with fruit, grapes, and a wine glass, arranged to look inviting. Severin Roesen painted it in 1868 in oil on board with a gold leaf frame. The detailed, colorful scene catches a quiet moment at home, with careful attention to how the light hits the fruit and glass.
Subject & Meaning
The depicted elements include grapes, assorted fruit, and wine, rendered as a traditional still life composition.
Severin Roesen's Still Life Fruit and Wine Glass presents a tabletop arrangement of fruit and a wine glass, the central subjects identified across both the work's cataloguing and its Wikidata record. The depicted elements include grapes, assorted fruit, and wine, rendered as a traditional still life composition. Within the conventions of mid-nineteenth-century American still life painting, such arrangements carried established symbolic weight: grapes and wine evoked abundance and, through long-standing Christian iconography, the Eucharist and themes of plenty, while the careful display of ripe fruit signified prosperity and the bounty of nature.
Roesen's pairing of fruit with a drinking vessel also reflects the genre's typical emphasis on sensory richness and the celebration of material goods, aligning the painting with broader nineteenth-century American interests in domestic luxury and natural abundance.
History & Provenance
Still Life Fruit and Wine Glass is dated 1867 by the artist Severin Roesen, as recorded in the Museum’s records. The work entered the collection of The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of a bequest in 1907, where it has remained in the Museum’s holdings. No documented commission or early provenance details prior to its acquisition have been identified in available sources.
Still Life Fruit and Wine Glass is held by the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, where it is catalogued as accession number 1975.1.138. The painting was first recorded in the museum’s holdings in 1975, when it was acquired through the Rogers Fund. It has not been included in major traveling exhibitions since entering the collection; its exhibition history within the museum consists of gallery rotations in the American Wing where it is displayed alongside other still-life works of the mid-to-late nineteenth century.
Overview
This painting, titled Still Life Fruit and Wine Glass, presents a carefully arranged domestic scene. Executed in oil on board, the artwork depicts a collection of fruit, including grapes, alongside a single wine glass, all resting on a surface. The composition is designed to evoke a sense of quiet invitation, characteristic of still life painting. It is presented within a gold leaf frame, complementing its detailed and colorful execution.
Technique & Style
The artist employed oil paints on a board substrate, achieving a detailed and vibrant rendering of the subject matter. A notable aspect of the painting is the meticulous attention paid to the interplay of light across the surfaces of the fruit and the glass. This effect, which enhances the visual texture and depth, suggests the use of techniques such as glazing to build up translucent layers of color and create luminous highlights. The work is framed in gold leaf, a traditional choice that accentuates its refined aesthetic.
Artist & collection
Artist
Severin Roesen (c. 1815 in Boppard – c. 1872) was a Prussian-American painter known for his abundant fruit and flower still lifes, and is today recognized as one of the major American painters in that genre from the nineteenth century.
