Still Life, Flowers, and Fruit

In this lush and fanciful image, Severin Roesen has arranged irises, tulips, cabbage roses, bluebells, and dahlias alongside an apple, an orange, half of a lemon, grapes, a pear, a peach, Italian plums, and a tiny stem of red currants. All appear at their height of bloom or ripeness, though this would have been impossible in nature (and they would have decayed before the artist could complete his composition). Given this element of fantasy, and because several motifs repeat throughout Roesen's hundreds of still lifes, scholars speculate that he may have employed some form of stencil or pattern.

This profuse array of flowers and fruit crisply rendered in bright, saturated colors unmistakably recalls 17th-century Dutch still-life painting, which Roesen was the first American artist to emulate in earnest. Several symbols employed in the earlier tradition also appear here. Ephemeral elements such as a ladybug, butterflies, and dew drops—traditionally suggesting the transience of life—are joined by a fly (symbolizing decay) and a nest of eggs (emblematic of fertility and abundance).

Still Life, Flowers and Fruit was executed shortly after Roesen immigrated to New York City from his native Germany, where he is thought to have begun his career painting fruit and flower designs on porcelain. Although he wasn't widely known during his lifetime, the artist did attract eager patrons in New York and later in prosperous Williamsport, Pennsylvania, for his elaborate renderings of the popular 19th-century theme of America's natural bounty.