Still life (Holy water)

Constantin Daniel Stahi built his reputation on the patient study of old objects, church things above all. While his close friend Nicolae Grigorescu chased daylight in the open air, Stahi worked indoors, painting antique books, candlesticks and vessels with almost tactile precision. Painted in 1882, this still life is arranged around a holy-water vessel of the kind used in Orthodox blessing. It belongs to a moment when Romanian art was turning eagerly toward modern French painting, and Stahi's careful attention to worn metal and old bindings can look deliberately out of step with that fashion. He spent decades teaching at the fine-arts school in Iasi, where he also looked after the picture collection of its museum.