Fruit and Flowers

Roger Fenton

National Gallery of Art

Grapes and flowers arranged on a tabletop in front of a dark background fill this horizontal photograph. The image is monochromatic like a black and white photograph but is printed in warm tones of golden and dark browns. The tabletop runs parallel and close to the bottom edge of the composition. It seems to be made of marble and a striped cloth folds over the front edge of the table to our left. Dark grapes are bunched around a vase at the middle of the composition. The vase's tall oval body and long, tapering neck are painted with decorative scrolls and curlicues. A few pieces of small round fruit, perhaps plums, rest on the table in front of the vase. A gleaming goblet to the left and a small figurine of a young boy with a sheaf of wheat to our right are almost lost in the profusion of roses, lilies, hyacinth, and other flowers that fill the space around and behind the objects. The top corners of the photograph are curved, creating a shallow arch.