Severin Roesen

American, born Germany, 1816 - after 1872

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A tall bouquet of mostly celestial-blue, cream-white, and maroon-red flowers fills a rust-red urn, which sits next to a pile of fruit on a brown, stone table in this vertical still life painting. The bouquet is arranged so the flowers fill most of the painting from the upper right corner down to the lower left. The bouquet includes two open, white tulips delicately veined with wine-red streaks at the top center. Two ocean-blue irises are to the right of the tulips, and bluebells are tucked in toward the back of the arrangement, to our left. The bottom half of the bouquet has an anemone flower with white petals around a golden yellow center, and a white rose with its petals tightly clustered around a salmon-pink center. Sprigs of more flowers and fern-green or mustard-yellow leaves fill in and spill out at the sides of the bouquet and the vase. A second white rose and a rosebud rests on the table to our left of the bouquet, and a nest with three small, speckled eggs sits behind it. A butterfly landed on one of the fallen peony's leaves near the front edge of the table. The butterfly has brick-red wings spotted with black and white rings. The fruit spans the right two-thirds of the composition, and includes a bunch of luminous, pale green grapes, two peaches, an orange, a pear, and three plums. A cut citrus fruit sits at the center of the table with the cut side facing our left. The tabletop is marbled with white veins against brown, and it curves out in a half-moon at the front center. The scene is lit from our left. The background behind the flowers lightens from dark shadow at the upper left corner to pecan brown along the right edge. The artist signed and dated the painting as if he had inscribed the top of the table near the grapes: “S. Roesen 1848.”
Severin Roesen, Still Life, Flowers, and Fruit, 1848, oil on canvas, Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase through the gift of Orme Wilson), 2014.136.84

Still Life, Flowers, and Fruit

Severin Roesen · 1848 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  2014.136.84

Severin Roesen, Peaches, Grapes, and Apples, n.d., oil on wood, Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts, 2018.44.18

Peaches, Grapes, and Apples

Severin Roesen · n.d. · oil on wood ·  Accession ID  2018.44.18