Still Life with Fruit 1648 - 1673

Michiel Simons painted this still life with oil on canvas, presenting a bountiful arrangement. Consider the peeled lemon, a recurring motif in Dutch Golden Age painting. More than mere citrus, it embodies a complex duality: its initial sweetness yielding to a sharp bitterness. Think of classical depictions of the Fall, where fruit symbolizes temptation and the fleeting nature of earthly pleasures. The lemon, then, becomes a memento mori, a reminder of life’s transience. Notice how the silver jug catches the light, its reflective surface mirroring the scene yet distorting it. Recall how in Jan van Eyck’s "Arnolfini Portrait", the mirror encapsulates not only the visible world but also unseen truths and hidden witnesses. The artist invites us to contemplate how symbols resonate across time, evolving yet retaining echoes of their original significance. The emotional power lies not just in the objects themselves but in the collective memories they evoke, engaging us in a dialogue between the seen and the unseen, the present and the past.