Peaches & Small Jug

This is the first painting of these handmade bricks and a Davenport Jug.  We were given the jug and quite a few other Davenport pieces of pottery  from a family collection and their role in still life compositions is invaluable.  The knife is a gilder’s knife with an unusual, sloping blade. I have tried but I must confess I have not mastered gilding,  but have found an excellent craftsperson who has.  For the painting? The facets and pattern are  fascination needing minutely different colours and values of light and dark to create the sense of 3D.    It was quite a surprise when I realised the handle is decorated with green scales of a snake and its head is that bump – you can just make it out with the magnifier!  As so often happens when one thing is a labour – painting the peaches with their furry bloom, went just like that.  It is rather a dear little painting and has a very appropriate home.

Oil on canvas  2014  50 x 45cm   20  x 18in