Still Life with a Basket of Fruit and a Bunch of Asparagus

At a time when still life was emerging as a discrete subject (and not just an element of larger narrative works), this artist depicted fruit and vegetables arrayed on a simple tabletop with elegant clarity and naturalism. Louise Moillon trained first under her father and, from 1620, her stepfather. When she executed this still life at the young age of 20, she was already an accomplished painter. Women painters were not uncommon within the European tradition of the family workshop, which provided training, studio space, and clients for successive generations of artists. The system was one of few pro- fessional routes for women in a period when they could not legally take up a career.