MOILLON, Louise

Louise Moillon specialized in - usually small - still-life paintings. The present work is one of a number of larger, more ambitious compositions that she painted, showing market stalls laden with baskets of fruit and vegetables and including one, two or three large-scale figures.

This is an early painting of the artist, it is signed and dated 1634.

Louise Moillon was the most significant 17th-century French painter of still-lifes. She preferred to paint fruit and flower still-lifes. She painted mostly the motif of a fruit-laden plate or - as in this case - wicker basket on a table. Her colours were always cool, and she did not undergo any significant changes.

Peaches (Latin malum persicum) were regarded as a subspecies of apples in the 17th century and were associated with the same symbolism. However, it is unlikely that the artist intended any opposition between the ‘Eucharistic’ grapes and the peaches as a possible symbol of evil (malum). Rather, the co-occurrence of grapes and peaches was probably prompted by a theory of juices. According to this theory, peaches before a meal prevent drunkenness from excessive wine-drinking.

In French painting, the 1630s saw the development of the one unexpected genius of the period, Louise Moillon. Her long career was spent entirely in Paris, and enough of her work survives to justify her being placed among the greatest of all still-life painters. Inevitably this claim will be challenged by those who do not accept that genius can exist outside the grand manner of painting but, in the context of the art of depicting fruit and vegetables, Moillon had few superiors.

Certain influences can be detected in Moillon’s art, but these are superficial. A few of her genre pictures are of the type reflected in the market scenes painted in Antwerp at the end of the sixteenth century by Joachim Beuckelaer, but Moillon’s market scenes owe a debt to Antwerp only in subject-matter. The Market Scene with a Pick-pocket was recently discovered in a London private collection. In many of the Antwerp pictures, the humble activity of vegetable selling was transformed into a religious theme by smell scenes in the background such as Christ in the house of Martha and Mary, always a popular addition because it could be classed as ‘genre’. In Moillon’s work there is no such concession. Instead, in the London picture, the artist reveals her modernity by telling an anecdote: a prosperous housewife buys fruit and vegetables, while an urchin picks her pocket; the vegetable seller likely to be part of the plot. The whole unfortunate scene is painted with a complete sense of detachment, producing a snapshot effect rather than an elaborately posed and worked-out theme. The figures are observed as if they were part of the still-life themselves. Each still-life element in the picture is painted with enormous skill: the bloom on the fruit is beautifully recorded. Each object has an almost surreal isolation (similar to that in the celebrated Still-Life by her contemporary, the Spanish painter Zurbar�n, in the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena).

This image shows a still-life with peaches on a pewter charger atop a chip-wood box. It is signed and dated on the box: Louyse Moillon 1634

Directly influenced by the Dutch Protestant community living in Saint-Germain-des-Pr�s, Paris, Louise Moillon painted directly to the essential and invites the viewer to contemplate the peaches arranged with great simplicity and stunning realism.

This is a still-life with a basket of bitter oranges and pomegranates on a ledge

Louise Moillon as a Protestant was very attached to her community and religion. The choice of fruit is perhaps also not so innocuous with their well-known strong spiritual symbolism. The pomegranate with its compact seeds under the same peel, symbolizes the Church and the faithful united in the Christian faith.

This panel depicts a still-life with a bowl of apricots, peaches and plums on an entablature. It is an early work of a charismatic simplicity.

This painting is an early work by the young artist. She revealed at the age of 19 one of the very first signed and dated still-lifes known in France. The still-life genre had little regard in France, but became appreciated after the early 17th century and the reign of Louis XIII. The first known French works are dated from the 1620s and were popular among scholars who considered these paintings as worthy of display in cabinets of curiosities.

The present still-life adapts the subject of a simple basket filled with damson plums arranged frontally on a table. The rigorous composition is pure and balanced. The composition is staged against a dark background highlighting the Caravaggesque theatrical effect. The table’s edge is part of the composition. It is visible throughout the length of the panel and is described with great realism. The light projects from beyond the frame and from the left. It draws the shadow of the basket and accentuates the drama and realism.

The painting is signed and dated lower right: Louyse Moillon / 1629.

Moillon’s Still-Life with Cherries, Strawberries and Gooseberries in the Pasadena collection shows the humbler side of her art. Again, there is no emotional or romantic involvement with the subject, only an obsession with the appearance of ripe fruits. They are not even made appetizing, as were the sumptuous banquets depicted by the Dutch.

Moillon’s unswerving sense of detachment in her art inevitably led to questions about her Frenchness, but in fact she was simply a courageous individualist, unlike most French still-life and flower painters, who were happy to imitate, usually in a weaker manner, the styles and compositions that were typical of Dutch and Flemish artists.

Faithful to the Flemish models Louise Moillon grew up with during her training, the artist combines balance and simplicity in her presentation of a china bowl containing peaches, one of which has been cut in half and placed in front of the recipient.

This is a still-life with a basket of plums, peaches, cherries and redcurrants, together with fraises-de-bois in a porcelain bowl, figs and mulberries on a wooden ledge. Characteristic of Moillon’s still-lifes at around 1630 are the cherry leaves which extend far beyond the confines of the basket.

The genre of the “shop scene” was first created by Joachim Beuckelaer. It combines a scene of everyday life with a still-life. The genre was introduced in Paris in the early seventeenth century. In this painting Moillon follows a typical Flemish type of construction.