Ripeness is all

Talk of quinces reminded me of Giovanna Garzoni (1600-1670), painter to the Medicis.  Her still-lifes--tempera on vellum--are unluscious, elegant, austere, and melancholy:  meditations on mortality.  Her offerings are not to Bacchus; they are left untasted by Persephone as she descends, autumnal.  Birds will peck at them.















Clearly she loved prickly creatures; may have been one herself, having taken a perpetual vow of chastity.



Nine