Natura morta con piatto di cotogne

Four ripe quinces sit on a metal dish, lit sharply from the left against a plain dark ground. For a long time this looked like a pure still life, but X-rays told a stranger story. The canvas was cut down from a larger picture, probably a domestic religious scene, leaving the fruit to stand on its own. That fits Zurbaran's Seville, a city of monasteries where a plate of fruit could quietly stand for the Redemption. Around 1633 he was working mostly for Carthusian and Hieronymite houses, painting saints and plain objects with the same steady, sculptural light. The golden skins catch that light where they meet the rim of the dish.