Still Life with Fruit and Wine Jug
Still Life with Fruit and Wine Jug
<p>Vincent van Gogh was a great admirer of <a href="https://www.artic.edu/artists/35813">Adolphe Monticelli’s</a> richly impastoed paintings, and he saw in the older artist’s landscapes, flower arrangements, and portraits the sincere expression he was seeking for his own art. He also identified with the myth of the misunderstood artist from Provence that rapidly grew around Monticelli after his death in 1886. Indeed, the artist played a role in Van Gogh’s decision that same year to travel to the South of France, where he hoped to find the source of Monticelli’s light. In this still life, Monticelli’s brilliant yellow fruits anticipate Van Gogh’s celebrated lemon yellow suns.</p>

Jacques Blot, Paris; sold to E. J. Van Wisselingh & Co, Amsterdam, 1952 [information provided in email from Marcia Zaaijer, based on Van Wisselingh photos in Rijksbureau voor Kunsthistorische Documentatie, The Hague; Wisselingh asigned the painting number S 7295]; sold to Paul Rosenberg and Co., New York, Jan. 23, 1953 [information from Marcia Zaaijer, as cited above]; sold to Mary and Leigh Block, Chicago, Mar. 26, 1953 [according to Rosenberg records provided by Elaine Rosenberg, May 2002; see also Marseille 1986-87]; given to the Art Institute, 1988.