
Oranges, Nuts, and Figs
What you see
A white porcelain bowl with a scalloped rim sits at the center on a red cloth, against a black background. A large orange crowns the heap, surrounded by walnuts, almonds in their shells, hazelnuts and dried figs. Bunches of raisins hang down on both sides almost to the cloth, and one loose raisin lies alone on the left.
The deep orange of the fruit and the red of the cloth glow against the darkness, with light coming from the left. You can see the pitted skin of the orange and the wrinkles of the figs. Watch for the gold-edged green designs on the bowl, and the signature at lower right.
About Lilly Martin Spencer
Lilly Martin Spencer was born in England in 1822, grew up on a farm in Ohio and became one of the most popular and widely reproduced women painters in mid-nineteenth-century America. Her lively, often humorous scenes of family life, which sometimes poked fun at husbands, were sold widely as lithographs. Unusually for her time, she was the family breadwinner while her husband ran the household, and she kept painting until her death at nearly eighty.
More by Lilly Martin Spencer
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