Still Life, Basket of Apples

Van Gogh's Still Life, Basket of Apples from 1887, now at the Saint Louis Art Museum, belongs to his Paris period exploration of traditional still-life subjects. The basket of apples appears repeatedly through his Paris work, serving as both compositional exercise and chromatic study. Each version tests different arrangements, lighting conditions, and palette approaches, reflecting his systematic engagement with the genre. The Saint Louis Art Museum's acquisition gives this a distinguished American institutional home within a museum known for its French and American Impressionist holdings.

The basket arrangement is rendered with Van Gogh's Paris period directness — the apples' varied reds and yellows observed with chromatic freshness. His brushwork builds each apple as a distinct rounded form while maintaining the composition's unity. The palette is lighter and more varied than his Dutch period still lifes, reflecting his Parisian evolution.