Still life with Flowers and Fruit
After Severin Roesen, 1854.  Oil on linen. 30 x 43 inches.
Private collection, Devon, Pennsylvania.

Severin Roesen, one of many German refugees from the 1848 peasant revolutions in Europe, brought to the United States high standards of craftsmanship. His work was modeled after seventeenth- and early-eighteenth-century Dutch painting. His hyper-real still lifes graced many dining rooms in the homes of collectors who recognized his exceptional skill. These paintings were seen as representing nature's abundance and the sanctity of the New World.