Image: Eugène Delacroix, Still Life With Flowers And Fruit (1848)

With today’s post we pick up the thread of the history of still life painting in Europe and move firmly into the 19th century. The painting is by the French painter Eugène Delacroix, generally more famous for his heroic historic paintings.

This painting was one of a series of still lifes done for showing at the Salon or an exposition. Flowers were the primary subject, but with this one he presented fruit arranged like flowers, and because we are a site focused on food it is the one we are drawn to. The painting in apparently in the holdings of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which provides this background:

“We do not know what was behind Delacroix’s original decision to present five flower paintings at the Salon of 1849. In the end, however, he exhibited only two, keeping a more sizable shipment for the Exposition Universelle of 1855. Undoubtedly, he was predisposed to paint flowers by a passion for flower gardens and gardening, which he shared with his acquaintance George Sand and his great friend Josephine de Forget–in whose company the artist ‘prowled around rose bushes.'” Vincent Pomarède, from Delacroix: The Late Work (1998), p. 127.

For those of you with an interest, some of the museums on the mall, including the National Gallery of Art, have opened with restrictions.

The same is true for many restaurants. We have been updated our site to keep track of who is open and who is doing take-out/delivery. We have more than 300 recommended restaurants listed.  We have more places listed than most guides and more up-to-date information than any other guide for Washington.  You can sort by neighborhood, cuisine, or current status (dine-in, take-out, etc.). You can search by LIST or MAP.  It’s pretty cool.  Check it out.

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