Still Life with Apples Pear and a Pomegranate

Tumbling out of a wicker basket, a handful of fruit rests on a plain table in this quiet study by Gustave Courbet. There are apples in red and green, a soft pear in the middle, and pomegranates glowing in the warm darkness. The background is deep and shadowy, which makes the fruit feel close and almost touchable. Courbet was a leader of the Realism movement in France, and he liked to paint everyday things just as they were, without making them prettier or grander than life.

This little painting carries a surprising backstory. Courbet made many of his fruit pictures while he was in prison in 1871, locked up for his role in the Paris Commune, a brief revolutionary government that took over the city. With limited freedom, he turned to simple subjects that could be brought to his cell or studio. You can spot his signature in red at the bottom right, along with "Ste Pelagie," the name of the prison where he was held. What looks like a calm arrangement of fruit was actually painted during one of the hardest chapters of the artist's life.