Still Life Artwork

Pears and figs and a split melon spill across the cloth from an old painted dish, a whole harvest set down in a rush. Found in Le Perche and dating to the 20th century, it is a watercolor, softly washed and loosely drawn, signed in the lower corner and set in a simple wood frame. The still life is the oldest test of a painter, the arrangement of fruit and cloth that has drawn artists for centuries, and here it is caught in the soft, quick washes only watercolor allows. Sylvie leans it on a shelf or hangs it in a kitchen, a bit of soft color among plainer things.