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Still Life on Kitchen Table with Celery, Parsley, Bowl, and Cruets

Léon Bonvin1865

The Walters Art Museum

The Walters Art Museum
Baltimore, United States

In about 1863, Bonvin began to paint still-lifes portraying informal arrangements of commonplace flowers, vegetables, and kitchen implements. In this instance, on the tabletop partly covered by a white cloth, there are three heads of celery, some parsley, several garlic bulbs, and various utensils including a knife, a cruet set, a pestle and mortar, and a faience bowl. The same combination of kitchen implements, particularly the knife extending over the table's edge, and the cloth with clearly defined folds, figured in the still-lifes of Bonvin's older half brother François at this time and was also dominant in Manet's paintings of the mid-1860s. These works adhered to a tradition that can be traced to the still-lifes of Chardin and ultimately to Dutch 17th-century precedents. Distinctive of Léon Bonvin's approach was the humble nature of the fare. Philippe Burty recalls that Bonvin, compelled to paint at night, frequently drew his still-lifes using a lamp enclosed in a box with a small opening as a light source, a practice that sometimes imparted a slightly acid color to the greens (Burty, "Léon Bonvin," in "Harpers New Monthly Magazine," 75, January 1886: 37-51). In this drawing, the artist's obsession with detail is clearly manifested in his treatment of the intricate mass of the celery roots. He often outlined the forms in ink and then applied colored washes.

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  • Title: Still Life on Kitchen Table with Celery, Parsley, Bowl, and Cruets
  • Creator: Léon Bonvin (French, 1834-1866)
  • Date Created: 1865
  • Subject Keywords: still life
  • External Link: For more information about this and thousands of other works of art in the Walters Art Museum collection, please visit art.thewalters.org
  • Roles: Artist: Léon Bonvin (French, 1834-1866)
  • Provenance: William T. Walters, Baltimore [date and mode of acquisition unknown]; Henry Walters, Baltimore, 1894, by inheritance; Walters Art Museum, 1931, by bequest.
  • Object Type: watercolors
  • Medium: watercolor and brush with graphite underdrawing, pen and iron gall ink, and gum varnish on heavily textured, moderately thick, cream wove paper
  • Inscriptions: [Signature] In graphite, lower left: Leon Bonvin; [Signature and date] In iron gall ink, lower right: Léon Bonvin, 1865; [Number] On verso album page (secondary suport): C4 and 20
  • Exhibitions: The Drawings and Watercolors of Léon Bonvin. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland; The Walters Art Gallery, Baltimore. 1980-1981., The Essence of Line: French Drawings from Ingres to Degas. The Walters Art Museum, Baltimore; Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore; Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham; Tacoma Art Museum, Tacoma. 2005-2006.
  • Dimensions: H: 6 9/16 x W: 8 11/16 in. (16.6 x 22 cm)
  • Credit Line: Acquired by William T. Walters
  • Classification: Painting & Drawing
  • Accession Number: 37.1504
The Walters Art Museum

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