Ask the Scholar

In about 1863, Bonvin began to paint still-lifes portraying informal arrangements of commonplace flowers, vegetables, and kitchen implements. In this instance, on the tabletop partly covered by a white cloth, there are three heads of celery, some parsley, several garlic bulbs, and various utensils including a knife, a cruet set, a pestle and mortar, and a faience bowl. The same combination of kitchen implements, particularly the knife extending over the table's edge, and the cloth with clearly defined folds, figured in the still-lifes of Bonvin's older half brother François at this time and was also dominant in Manet's paintings of the mid-1860s. These works adhered to a tradition that can be traced to the still-lifes of Chardin and ultimately to Dutch 17th-century precedents. Distinctive of Léon Bonvin's approach was the humble nature of the fare. Philippe Burty recalls that Bonvin, compelled to paint at night, frequently drew his still-lifes using a lamp enclosed in a box with a small opening as a light source, a practice that sometimes imparted a slightly acid color to the greens (Burty, "Léon Bonvin," in "Harpers New Monthly Magazine," 75, January 1886: 37-51). In this drawing, the artist's obsession with detail is clearly manifested in his treatment of the intricate mass of the celery roots. He often outlined the forms in ink and then applied colored washes.