2000.363 Severin Roesen, Fruit Still Life with Champagne Bottle

Fruit Still Life with Champagne Bottle is among the earliest known signed and dated works Severin Roesen painted in the United States. As such it occupies a singularly important niche in his career, and in the development of American still life painting. In this work Roesen's goal was to establish himself as a painter of consummate skill, to attract commissions and make a living as an artist. In fact, the artist first exhibited this painting at the American Art-Union (AA-U), then arguably the principal New York venue for displaying works of art. As part of their exhibitions, the AA-U used a lottery to distribute selected artworks to its dues paying members. Fruit Still Life with Champagne Bottle was among those paintings distributed in 1849.

In its coherent simplicity, the arrangement of fruit and tableware in this work offers a satisfying and elegant repast, complete with both a flute of champagne and a glass of dessert wine. A corner of the damask tablecloth is folded back to reveal the artist's initials, appearing backwards, as though embroidered in the actual cloth. The placement of the corkscrew, still attached to the champagne cork and foil wrapper, directs the viewer's attention to the embroidery and to the painted signature and date on the table beneath.

Additional details such as the fly that has landed on one of the pears further accentuates the trompe-l'oeil illusionism of the painting, and suggest that the fruits will rapidly ripen and spoil. The pulp of the cut lemon has begun to dry out and tighten, and the orange peel, no longer fresh and moist, curls inward, further signaling the passage of  time. The effervescence of the champagne bubbles carries temporally charged cues as well. These examples of memento mori (reminders of mortality) also connect the work  to European painting traditions.

Recent conservation on Fruit Still Life with Champagne  Bottle entailed a straightforward cleaning of the entire surface. The painting was also lined, as during the 19th century, the canvas sustained a 5-inch tear near the center of the fruit in the compote. Analysis of the brushwork indicates this tear was repaired and  retouched by the artist. The painting comes to us in a period frame decorated with peapods and wheat sheaves, fitted with a gilded  spandrel liner. (EJH acq proposal)

Place of origin: New York (New York/United States): TGN: 7007567

Oil on canvas

wine bottle

champagne flutes

wine

still life

lemon

pear

apple

orange

grapes

green glass

water

initials

signature

table cloth

table

corkscrew

corks (stoppers)

reflections

transparency

fly (insect)

realism

cut glass

compote

1849: W. K. Greene, Jr., Amsterdam, NY from the American Art Union, New York, NY

n.d.: Private collection, New York

By 1964: Mr. and Mrs. Jerome James B. Holt, Beverly Hills, CA     

Until 1998: by descent [1] 

1998-2000: Brown-Corbin Fine Art, Lincoln, MA, purchased at auction, "American Paintings, Drawings and Sculpture, Sotheby's, New York," December 3, 1998, lot 158, as Fruit Still Life with Champagne Bottle

From 2000: Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Pauline Allen Gill Foundation, purchased from the above

[1] The primary source for this provenance is documentation provided by Brown-Corbin Fine Art in the Collections Records Object File.

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