Luca Forte's original meaning for this bountiful still life has been lost, but it may be an evocation of the bounty of autumn. The grapes, apples, and pears represent harvest fruits, and a seed-filled open pomegranate itself symbolizes abundance. As here, Forte typically added tiny insects, snails, and drops of moisture to the fruit. By painting on a copper panel with painstaking brushwork, he gave his surfaces a polished smoothness similar to fine enamel. Forte was known for his sensitivity to the material nature of the objects he represented, capturing their solidity and roundness through light, shade, and color. Best known in his own day as a specialist in these fruit still lifes, Forte transformed the development of the still life genre in Naples. He introduced landscapes as backdrops, instead of the plain, dark backgrounds of the earlier Neapolitan style, which followed Caravaggio's lead.
Digital image and text courtesy of the Getty's Open Content Program.