FINE ART
Silver and Citrus
Oil on Artefex Oleopanel · 16 × 20 inches · 2026
Painted in the classical Flemish manner — umber ground, grisaille underpainting, dead layer, and translucent glazes built fat-over-lean — Silver and Citrus continues the still life tradition of Heda, Kalf, and Claesz. The composition rests on the quiet conversation between a polished silver teapot and the cool acidity of citrus: light moving across burnished metal and translucent flesh in the slow language of the Dutch Golden Age.
Every passage was painted from life, in natural north light, over months rather than days. The work was made the way it would have been made in 1640, because that is the only way it could be made.
Substrate — Artefex Oleopanel
Pigments — Michael Harding and Natural Pigments oils
Method — Classical layered technique: umber ground, grisaille, dead layer, glazes
Frame — Hand-finished "Delia" ripple frame, Northwood Framing, Scotland
Documentation — Certificate of Authenticity, signed and numbered
Recognition — Currently under jury review.
Painted in the old way. For those who know why that matters.