Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose

By 1633 Zurbarán was the painter Seville turned to for its monks and martyrs, working for the convents of a city gripped by Counter-Reformation devotion. This is the one still life he ever signed and dated, and it carries the same religious weather as those commissions. Three groups sit apart on a bare ledge, each lit against the dark the way his saints are. Spanish viewers would have read them as devotion rather than abundance. The oranges with their blossom and the cup of water beside a single rose point to the purity of the Virgin, and the lemons, bitter, to her grief. He was about 45, and as far as we know he never signed a still life again.