Fruit and Flowers

Orsola Maddalena Caccia painted this still life of fruit and flowers with oil on canvas, sometime in the 17th century. While paintings might seem like a world apart from craft, consider the labour involved. Caccia would have ground her own pigments, carefully building up layers of paint to achieve this remarkable illusion of reality. Look closely and you’ll see the artist’s hand everywhere, in the delicate rendering of the flower petals, the subtle gradations of colour in the fruit. Notice how the light seems to caress the surfaces, revealing their texture and form. This wasn't just about technical skill. It was about seeing, about understanding the inherent qualities of her subject matter, from the smooth skin of an apple to the velvety texture of a peach. In Caccia’s hands, the ordinary becomes extraordinary, a testament to the transformative power of close observation and skilled handling of materials.