Still Life with Fruit and Sliced Lemon

Purchased with the John and Karen McFarlin Acquisition Fund.

Still Life with Fruit and Sliced Lemon

Artist: Severin Roesen (American, born Germany, 1816 - ca. 1872)

Date: ca. 1854

Medium: Oil on canvas

Dimensions:

28 1/2 x 38 in. (72.4 x 96.5 cm)

framed: 35 3/4 x 45 1/2 in. (90.8 x 115.6 cm)

Credit Line: San Antonio Museum of Art, purchased with the John and Karen McFarlin Acquisition Fund

Object number: 91.5

Signed: Signed lower center: Roesen

Provenance: Collection of Volney T. Malott, Indianapolis; collection of Paul H. White, Indianapolis; collection of Mrs. John S. Loomis, Winnetka; collection of Paul W. Loomis, San Antonio

Label Text

Several types of grapes, lemons, peaches, oranges, apples and berries tumble across the front of this canvas. The lavish abundance of fruit in this large still life suggests hospitality, gracious living, and, above all, wealth. Paintings such as this adorned the mansions of the timber barons of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, who kept German-born painter Severin Roesen in business in the middle of the nineteenth-century.

Born in Germany, Roesen emigrated to the United States during the upheaval of German unification in the late 1840s. After first working in Philadelphia, he settled in Williamsport, about three and a half hours north and west, where his affluent clients prized his highly decorative scenes of fruit and flowers.

(William Keyse Rudolph, 2014)

Not on view

In Collection(s)

American Art

The San Antonio Museum of Art is in the process of digitizing its permanent collection. This electronic record was created from historic documentation that does not necessarily reflect SAMA's complete or current knowledge about the object. Review and updating of such records is ongoing.

Artwork

Still Life with Fruit and Sliced Lemon

Still Life with Fruit and Sliced Lemon