The Fruit Basket

The Fruit Basket
The painting inverted
Artist	Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Year	c. 1590
Medium	oil on panel
Dimensions	56 cm× 42 cm(22 in× 17 in)
Location	French & Company collection, New York

The Fruit Basket or Reversible Head with a Fruit Basket is a c.1590 oil-on-panel still life by the Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. It is held in the French & Company collection, in New York. ^[1] When inverted, it shows an anthropomorphic head by pareidolia. The same painter also produced The Cook and The Gardener .

Arcimboldo's reversible fruit basket painting is an early example of the fruit still life genre. It may have been the inspiration for Caravaggio's painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit . It may have also had an influence on Fede Galizia and Giovanni Ambrogio Figino, who would both later painted a number of fruit still lifes. ^[2]

The painting inverted and the right way up

References

1. Ferino-Pagden 2007, p. 178.
2. Ferino-Pagden 2007, p. 122, 179.

Bibliography

• Ferino-Pagden, Sylvia, ed. (2007). Arcimboldo: 1526-1593. New York: Rizzoli International Publications, Inc. ISBN   978-88-6130-379-9.