Self-taught artist Levi Wells Prentice is best known for his realistic still life compositions of fruit arranged within a landscape, or abundantly spilling from bushel baskets.
He followed a self-prescribed educational path, begun by the Hudson River School and reinforced by John Ruskin's (1819–1900) truth-to-nature principles laid out in his book Modern Painters.
This book has a photo of the artist in his early Brooklyn studio surrounded by his paintings and a complete essay on his life and work.
Prentice then turned to painting still life subjects when he moved briefly to Brooklyn, New York in 1883, focusing on fruit, in order of frequency apples, strawberries, peaches, plums, raspberries, cherries, muskmelons, pears, currants, pineapples, gooseberries, grapes and bananas usually piled high in pots or in natural settings.
The shift between dark background areas and the vibrant hues of the fruit are done to give the compositions an exciting, visual energy.