This is one of three tabletop still lifes depicting a basket of apples and grapes that Monet painted in 1879-80, when a spell of bad weather forced him to retreat indoors.
In late November 1879, his future stepdaughter Marthe Hoschedé took note of a "painting of fruits" in progress, when she recorded that Monet was "working hard at his still lifes which are very pretty". | Source: © The Metropolitan Museum of Art
Claude Monet | Apples and Grapes, 1879-80 | Metropolitan Museum of Art
Claude Monet probably painted this and other still lifes in 1879-80, knowing that they would be more readily marketable than his landscapes.
In Apples and Grapes, however, he employed the complexity of color, light, and texture found in his most Impressionist landscapes.
This is particularly evident in the extensive cloth surface - the play of light on the horizontal brushstrokes (indicating the folds in the tablecloth) recalls earlier canvases in which Monet used similar short horizontals of variegated colors to suggest water rippling in the sunlight. | Source: © Art Institute of Chicago
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