Three Pears
Three whole, green pears against a caramel-brown background fill this horizontal still life painting. The painting was created with long, parallel, visible brushstrokes throughout, and a strip of unpainted canvas lines the top edge. We look slightly down onto the fruit, which was painted with thick strokes of lemon-lime, asparagus, and spring green, and each piece of fruit is outlined with navy blue. The two pears to either side stand up and the third, between them, lies on the table with its brown stem angled to our left.
Colors in this work
Details
- Artist
- Paul Cezanne
- Date
- 1878/1879
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- overall: 20 x 25.7 cm (7 7/8 x 10 1/8 in.) framed: 37.47 x 43.5 x 6.35 cm (14 3/4 x 17 1/8 x 2 1/2 in.)
- Department
- CF
- Holding institution
- National Gallery of Art
- Palette
-
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- Image provider
- national-gallery-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Collection of Mr. and Mrs. Paul Mellon
Art Genome Taxonomy
7 tags
Subject Matter
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Still Life Both · 99%
The catalog describes the work as a horizontal still life, and the image clearly presents three pears as the sole subject.
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Group of Objects Both · 98%
Three distinct pears form a coordinated cluster of depicted objects, matching the catalog description of three whole pears.
Visual Qualities
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Earth Tones Visual · 96%
Muted browns, olive greens, ochres, and deep blue-green contours dominate the composition.
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Dense Composition Visual · 94%
The three pears overlap and occupy most of the horizontal field, leaving limited surrounding space and creating a compact arrangement.
Medium and Techniques
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Oil Painting Metadata · 99%
The catalog records the medium as oil on canvas.
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Large Brushstrokes/Loose Brushwork Both · 98%
The catalog describes long, parallel, visible brushstrokes and thick strokes, which are prominent across the pears and brown ground in the image.
Time Periods
-
19th Century Art Metadata · 99%
The catalog dates the painting to 1878/1879, placing it within nineteenth-century art.
Source & rights
Paul Cezanne. Three Pears. Courtesy National Gallery of Art, Washington.
High-resolution sources
- IIIF image service ↗ 13,648 × 10,484 · National Gallery Of Art · Available