A Dessert

Raphaelle Peale

National Gallery of Art

A shallow bowl filled with oranges, grapes, and nuts is surrounded by a short, flaring glass, a glass decanter, a lemon, and more nuts arranged along a wooden tabletop in this horizontal still life painting. The objects nearly fill the composition, and the table extends off both sides. The three oranges are pale, with the one at the center nearly yellow, and a stem of dark green leaves lies across the top. A bunch of shriveled grapes, like raisins still on the vine, lies across the almonds and other nuts, all in their shells, in the bowl. The outside of the bowl is white, and it has a gently scalloped rim. A lemon sits to our left of the bowl of fruit, and behind it, the glass decanter has a teardrop-shaped glass stopper. Light coming from the front and our left makes the peachy liquid glow. To our right are four whole walnuts in their shells, with a few grapes hanging from the bowl. Behind the walnuts, a long stemmed, flaring, clear glass is almost filled with the peach-colored liquid. The background is deeply shadowed at the upper left, lightening slightly to elephant gray toward the lower right. The artist inscribed the painting as if he had written his name, date, and location on the front edge of the table, near the lower right corner: “Raphaelle Peale Aug: 5th 1814 Philad:”