# The Fruit Vendor [View the canonical artwork record]() ## Artwork - Artist: [PENSIONANTE DEL SARACENI]() - Date: 1601-1650 - Technique: Oil on canvas, 130 x 98 cm ## Commentary A fruit seller and a young serving woman haggle over the price of a melon. The play of hands is indebted to Caravaggio, but its treatment is awkward. More assured is the still-life. The basket of fruit, which seems to jut over the table, and the wilting leaves suggesting the freshness of the fruit are motifs derived from Caravaggio's London <A onclick="return OpenOther\('/html/c/caravagg/06/35emmau.html'\)" HREF="/html/c/caravagg/06/35emmau.html">Supper at Emmaus,</A> and ones much favoured by still-life painters following him, such as Pietro Paolo Bonzi and the Master of the Acquavella Still-life. The melons, too, occur in pictures by these artists. Painted from three different viewpoints, and arranged on a parabola, they are veiled in a soft translucent light, and seem to detach themselves from the painting. They are strikingly close to the Washington Still-life and it has recently been suggested that the Washington painting, usually attributed to Pensionante del Saraceni, is by a different artist, who also contributed the still-life to this picture. The hard, crisp quality of the outlines of the figures, and the modelling in light, are close to the works of Dutch and Flemish Caravaggesque painters. ## Related artworks - [Still-Life with Fruit and a Carafe of White Wine \(detail\)]() - [Still-Life with Fruit and a Carafe of White Wine]() - [The Chicken Vendor]() ## Attribution [Web Gallery of Art]()