Still Life with Fruit (Figs and Currants)

Because the pieces of fruit have been arranged right up to the edge of the painting, this small still life, rendered in fluid brushstrokes, focuses the viewer’s gaze in a close-up of the subject. The fruit literally appears to be monumental. Both in terms of the motif and the composition, as well as in its format, the highly effective Still Life with Fruit is unique in Pierre-Auguste Renoir’s oeuvre because, until 1870, he had painted only large-scale still lifes of flowers, which were in keeping with the taste of the visitors to the Salon. It was not until after ca. 1900 that he was to paint numerous smallformat still lifes of fruit, though these were never to attain the quality of the Bremen painting. This work may rather be regarded as an unparalleled masterpiece, in which Renoir experimented freely with shapes and colors, while quoting Jean Siméon Chardin and Edouard Manet.