Circle of John F. Francis, American 1808-1886- Still life with fruit and baskets on a stone ledge; oil on canvas, 64.5 x 77.2 cm. Note: Francis was a painter primarily of still life works. Predominantly self-taught, he exhibited his works at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts and the Philadelphia Art Union. His works reveal his fascination with minute details and indeed, still-life paintings had already been established in this area as a popular genre by Raphaelle Peale (1774-1825) and his contemporaries. Francis's first known still life is dated 1850, and by 1854 he had ceased to paint anything else. Indeed, nearly all of his works depict fruits and desserts. William H. Gerdts writes, ‘Of all the mid-century still-life specialists, Francis was the most painterly. There is often a freshness and a brio to his paint application that successfully balance his sure delineation of form and his establishment of texture.’ The white-topped table, uncommon in European still-life painting, is entirely characteristic of Francis’s compositions, and indeed, the placement of the fruit and the dark background here are similarly consistent with his output. Please refer to department for condition report