A Carafe of Wine and Plate of Fruit on a White Tablecloth 1865

Henri Fantin-Latour made this still life of wine and fruit with oil paint on canvas. Fantin-Latour trained in the academic tradition, and while he was associated with the Impressionists, he was never fully one of them. Fantin-Latour was interested in the craft of painting, not merely in depicting the fleeting effects of light. You can see this in the painting’s careful composition, and in the way he has built up the surfaces with layers of paint. The textures are so real you could almost reach out and touch them. The choice of subject here—a carafe of wine and a plate of fruit—also speaks to a sensibility rooted in material culture. Everyday objects like these were becoming increasingly available to the middle class, thanks to industrial production. Fantin-Latour elevates these objects to the level of fine art, showing us that beauty can be found even in the most mundane aspects of life. This piece reflects broader social shifts, with luxury and leisure becoming more widely accessible.