Cherries

Bryan Chapin, a fellow artist and student of Robert Spear Dunning, wrote of the present work: "composed of a gold-lined silver dish overturned with cherries in front, with part of a mirror showing as the background. An instance of his fidelity to face is seen in the painting of the reflection of the studio wall in the small circle at the bottom of the dish and also at the reflection of the dish in the mirror. The carved mirror frame is a complicated and difficult object to paint." (Fall River Evening News, December 14, 1911, p. 9)

Mark D. Mitchell further explains, "The silver bowl in Robert Spear Dunning's Cherries has fallen over, proving unequal to its task and spilling fruit onto a cloth laid on the table...the overturned bowl's gilded interior reflect the artist in his nearly empty studio. The fine carved mahogany sideboard, precious silver vessel, and delicate cloth can be seen staged at one end of the room, distancing Dunning from the scene he portrays. As depicted, the studio is an expansive void in which these objects have been assembled and arranged not for the artist's pleasure, but for the purpose of making art. The illusion of being in someone's home is broken and the artist's invention revealed." (Audubon to Warhol: The Art of American Still Life, exhibition catalogue, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 2015, pp. 158, 160)