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Heap of red raspberries on serrated green leaves, in an oval format against a dark brown background

Raspberries

Lilly Martin Spencer, c. 1859

What you see

Within an oval, a heap of raspberries stretches from side to side on a bed of serrated leaves. The fruit forms a red mound, while the leaves spread toward the edges and spill onto an earthen ledge. In front, a few loose berries draw the eye downward.

The glowing red of the fruit plays against the green leaves and the brown background, where branches are only hinted at. Each berry is built from tiny dots of light that mark its little beads. Notice the pale undersides of some leaves on the left, the blades of grass along the bottom edge, and the initials in the lower left corner.

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.

All 10 works by Lilly Martin Spencer

More by Lilly Martin Spencer

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