Fruit Piece

In what may be a companion piece to the Getty Museum's Vase of Flowers, Jan van Huysum combined the lustrous realism of seventeenth-century Dutch paintings with the bright colors characteristic of the eighteenth century in a lavish still life of fruit and flowers. The asymmetrical arrangement of bursting and overripe fruit spills over onto the ledge, some falling prey to insects. Flowers droop under the weight of their extravagant blooms. Van Huysum deftly rendered the translucence of the grapes, the crisp surfaces of the leaves, and the wiry texture of the vines.

The highly finished surfaces of Van Huysum's paintings were the result of a laborious application of glazes to the canvas. He jealously guarded the details of this technique, allowing no visitors in his studio.