Paul Audra (French, 1869-1948)
Still Life with Grapes and a Carafe
Oil on canvas

Signed lower right Paul Audra. 13 x 9 inches (33 x 23 cm), the frame 17 x 14 inches (43 x 36 cm). Later gilt frame with a lattice border. Unlined and stable, a small loss at the upper left.

Everything in this canvas is turned. The grapes are wound in on themselves in dark red and blue, the carafe rises in loose vertical strokes of cream and gold, and a single round fruit at the center catches the light where the paint stands highest.

The paint is thick and worked wet into wet. In the grapes the red and the blue never quite mix, so the mass reads as one weight of color with cooler notes surfacing through it. At the upper right the brush passed lightly and the weave shows. The carafe is the palest passage and the most loaded, its stopper a knot of blue green sitting well proud of the surface.