Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus

Painting and Sculpture of Europe

1630

Louise Moillon
French, 1610–1696

At a time when still life was emerging as a discrete subject (and not just an element of larger narrative works), this artist depicted fruit and vegetables arrayed on a simple tabletop with elegant clarity and naturalism. Louise Moillon trained first under her father and, from 1620, her stepfather. When she executed this still life at the young age of 20, she was already an accomplished painter.

Women painters were not uncommon within the European tradition of the family workshop, which provided training, studio space, and clients for successive generations of artists. The system was one of few pro- fessional routes for women in a period when they could not legally take up a career.

Status: On loan to Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto for Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Louise Moillon
Title: Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus
Place: France (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1630
Medium: Oil on panel
Inscriptions: Inscribed lower right: Louyse’ Moillon. 1630
Dimensions: 53.3 × 71.3 cm (21 × 28 1/2 in.)
Credit Line: Wirt D. Walker Fund
Reference Number: 1948.78
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/62450/manifest.json

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961), 316.
Michel Faré, La Nature morte en France: Son Histoire et son évolution du XVIIe au XXe siècle (Geneva, 1962), vol. 2, fig. 33.
Michel Faré, Le Grand Siècle de la nature morte en France: Le XVIIe Siècle (Fribourg and Paris, 1974), 55 (ill.).
James A. Schinneller, Art: Search and Self-Discovery, 3rd ed. (Worcester, Mass., 1975), 28 (ill.).
Ann Sutherland Harris in Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Women Artists: 1550–1950, exh. cat. (1976), 141.
Claude Lesné, “La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines,” Le Petit Journal des grandes expositions 116 (1982), n.p. (ill.).
J. V. Hantz, “La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines,” L’Amateur d’art 35, no. 680 (1982), 19.
Erich Schleier, “La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines: France in the Golden Age, part 2,” Kunstchronik 36 (1983), 232.
André Chastel, Musica depicta (Milan, 1984), 30, 100–01 (ill.).
Christopher Wright, The French Painters of the Seventeenth Century (London, 1985), 233.
Beatrijs Brenninkmeyer-de Rooij in Paris, Galeries nationales du Grand Palais, De Rembrandt à Vermeer: Les Peintres hollandais au Mauritshuis de La Haye, exh. cat. (1986), 62, fig. 29.
Gerardo Casale, Giovanna Garzoni: “Insigne minatrice,” 1600–1670 (Milan and Rome, 1991), 28 (ill.).
Christopher Wright, comp., The World’s Master Paintings from the Early Renaissance to the Present Day: A Comprehensive Listing of Works by 1,300 Painters and a Complete Guide to Their Locations Worldwide (New York, 1991), vol. 1, p. 246; vol. 2, pp. 62, 427.
Copenhagen, Statens Museum fur Kunst, Fransk Guldalder: Poussin og Claude og maleriet I det 17. Århundredes Frankig, exh. cat. by Humphrey Wine and Olaf Koester, (1992), 50, fig. 17, p. 54.
James Yood, Feasting: A Celebration of Food in Art (New York, 1992), 7, no. 3 (ill.).
Alain Mérot, La Peinture française au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1994), 238–39 (ill.).
Susan Wise in Susan Wise and Malcolm Warner, French and British Paintings from 1600 to 1800 in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Collection (Chicago, 1996), 106–09 (ill.).
Andaleeb Badiee Banta and Alexa Greist, eds., Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800, exh. cat. (Fredericton, New Brunswick: Goose Lane Editions, 2023), 8 (detail ill.), 211, 213 cat. 115.

Paris, Galeries Nationales du Grand Palais, La Peinture française du XVIIe siècle dans les collections américaines, Jan. 29 – Apr. 26, 1982, cat. 73; New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, May 26 – Aug. 22, 1982; Art Institute of Chicago, Sep. 18 – Nov. 28, 1982.
Baltimore Museum of Art, Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800, Oct. 1, 2023 - Jan. 7, 2024, cat. 115; Toronto, Art Gallery of Ontario, Mar. 1, 2024 - July 1, 2024.

Gertrude D. Webster, Mass., probably to 1947 [Kleinberger archives, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York]. Sold, Plaza Art Galleries, New York, 6–8 November 1947, no. 234, as Dutch School, to Kleinberger, New York [annotated sale cat. in Frick Art Reference Library, New York]; sold by Kleinberger to the Art Institute through the Wirt D. Walker Fund, 1948.

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On loan to Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto for Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus

On loan to Art Gallery of Ontario in Toronto for Making Her Mark: A History of Women Artists in Europe, 1400-1800

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.

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IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world.

Learn more.