Still Life, Fruit in Landscape

Beginning in 1857, Severin Roesen, a German-born artist, traveled throughout Pennsylvania where he likely painted this elaborately staged tabletop scene. It is remarkable for the inclusion of the landscape in the upper right corner, the earliest instance of this element in Roesen’s body of work. He eventually settled in the booming lumber town of Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where he developed a reliable patronage and also supported himself through teaching. Roesen exhibited and sold his still-life paintings at the American Art Union, an organization that purchased hundreds of paintings from American artists and distributed them to its members by lottery.