19th-Century American Art

Still Life with Fruit, c. 1865
Severin Roesen (c. 1816-1872)
Oil on canvas
33-3/4 x 43-3/4 in.
Bequest of Miss Ellen Buckelew, 1970
DAM # 1970-13

Little is known of Roesen's personal life and training. He was born in Germany near Cologne and is thought to have trained as a porcelain and enamel painter. In 1847 he immigrated to the United States, where he became known for his floral and fruit compositions; he was soon was exhibiting still-life paintings in New York City. In the late 1850s Roesen settled in the Pennsylvania town of Williamsport.

Roesen's sumptuous still-life paintings reflect a sense of abundance and comfortable opulence. In Still Life with Fruit, a profusion of fruits overflows its basket and the table's edge. Roesen's paintings clearly reflect an ancestry in seventeenth-century Dutch still life, in which each object in an arrangement was rendered distinctly. Such paintings were as much about the transience of life as they were about the food they portrayed. Roesen's fruits, which ripen in different seasons, are each shown at their moment of perfect maturity and serve as a celebration of beautiful prosperity, conveyed in a crisp, clear style. Roesen's repetition of similar motifs within his body of work indicates that he may have used templates of the various subjects to create new arrangements.