Apron – Gustave Caillebotte, Fruit Displayed on a Stand

Caillebotte found his subject for this modern still life in the display of an upmarket fruit seller, likely near the independently wealthy artist’s Paris home. In traditional still-life paintings, fruits are arranged on tables near dishes or cutlery, suggesting a domestic setting. Here white wrappers and the distribution of fruits by kind makes evident that these are commodities for sale. Caillebotte’s unconventional choice of subject matter was praised in 1882 by writer and critic Joris-Karl Huysmans, who described the artist’s depiction of fruits of varying shape, size and colour on their ‘white paper beds’ as ‘extraordinary’ and heralded the painting as a ‘still life freed from its routine’.

Gustave Caillebotte
French 1848–94
Fruit Displayed on a Stand c. 1881–82 (detail)
oil on canvas
76.5 x 100.6 cm
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Fanny P. Mason Fund in memory of Alice Thevin (1979.196)
© 2025 Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Reproduced with permission. All Rights Reserved.