Henri-Horace Roland de la Porte

With Galerie Pardo, Paris by 1962;
With Galerie Kurt Meissner, Zürich;
Private Collection, Switzerland.

M. & F. Faré, La Nature Mort en France, Geneva 1962, vol II, no.376;
M. & F. Faré, La Vie Silencieuse en France: La Nature Morte au XVIII^e Siècle, Fribourg 1976, p. 184, reproduced figure 273.

The canvas has been relined and is in good condition. The paint surface is well preserved if a little pressed. There is a very slight impression from the stretcher visible on the upper edge. Inspection under UV reveals scattered retouches to the sky and some infilled abrasions in the right hand corners and along the right hand edge. There is some cracking in the green plums on the ledge, though the surface here is stable and this does not distract from the subject. Offered in a carved gilt wood frame.
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Accepted at the Académie Royale in 1761 and a frequent exhibitor at the Paris Salon, Roland de la Porte's work was held in high esteem and he enjoyed notoriety among contemporary collectors.   This charming and tranquil canvas, published in Faré's La Vie Silencieuse en France, is typical of the artist's later period when the scale of his still lifes had become more intimate, the palette more muted and the influence of Jean-Siméon Chardin is more apparent.¹  He chooses here a typically simple and rustic subject and uses a number of Chardin's devices, placing the objects on a ledge at eye level, the leaves overhanging the edge to draw the viewer in and a warm light source, emanating from upper right, throwing the fruit into stark relief within their stone niche.    

Whilst with Pardo this painting was accompanied by a pendant, showing peaches, a bread roll, a wineglass and a pitcher of wine in a corresponding stone niche though the two had been separated by 1966 when the pendant was offered at Christie's London.²

1.  M. & F. Faré, (see under Literature) p.184, reproduced fig. 273;
2.  M. & F. Faré, op.cit., p.184, reproduced fig. 274; offered in London, Christie's, 1 April 1966, lot 124.