Bottle and Fruit Dish
Returned to lender
This work of art was on loan to the museum and has since been returned to its lender.Typically, the Cubists inserted different styles of representation within a single picture. Gris shaded the tablecloth at the left with naturalistic creases and folds, whereas the pedestal of the fruit dish appears two ways, with a convincingly modeled, reddish-brown base and as a flat-footed white silhouette. The shared border between the two renditions possibly triggers an illusion known as Rubin’s Vase: if the brown shape dominates, the profile of a down-turned head emerges. Together, what one sees of the wine label “BEAU[NE/JOLAIS]” and the newspaper “LE JOUR[NAL]” spells “the beautiful day,” an ironic counter to the ominous blacks that fill the backdrop and a wistful sentiment, given Gris’s pronounced gloom during World War I.
Artwork Details
- Title: Bottle and Fruit Dish
- Artist: Juan Gris (Spanish, Madrid 1887–1927 Boulogne-sur-Seine)
- Date: 1916
- Medium: Oil on plywood
- Dimensions: 28 9/16 × 19 11/16 in. (72.5 × 50 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Kunstmuseum Basel, Gift of Dr. h.c. Raoul La Roche, 1956 (G 1956.21)
- Rights and Reproduction: Kunstmuseum Basel, Martin P. Bühler
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art