Still Life with Lemons, Oranges, and a Pomegranate

Lemons, oranges and a pomegranate, some split open to expose their succulent interiors, rest in a Chinese blue-and-white porcelain bowl of the Wan-Li period of the Ming dynasty, set on a plain wooden tabletop. Van Hulsdonck — the master of a prosperous Antwerp studio that specialised in still life — painted the arrangement from a high vantage point so that almost the whole table and the bowl’s contents come into view. The dimpled skins of the citrus fruit, the glistening pulp of the pomegranate held together by its thin white tissue, the leaves and blooms still attached to the fruit and the shiny droplets of water in the foreground all capture the brilliant, fleeting properties of the natural world, rendered surface by surface with remarkable control. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.