Candlestick c. 1939

Jules Lefevere made this drawing of a candlestick sometime between 1855 and 1995. It looks like he used some kind of watercolor or gouache on paper. I can imagine Lefevere squinting, really trying to nail that metallic sheen. He probably mixed a bunch of browns and yellows and greens to try to get it just right. I feel like he was really in the zone when he made this. And it's such an ordinary thing to paint, isn't it? A candlestick. It makes me think of all the everyday objects that artists have immortalized over the years. It reminds me a little of Morandi’s bottles, and the way he kept painting the same things over and over. It's like he was trying to figure something out, not about the bottles themselves, but about painting, about seeing. Maybe Lefevere was doing the same thing here.