Scarlet Macaw, Yellow-naped Amazon, Eurasian Bullfinch, Blue Tit, Eurasian Jay, and Red Squirrel with Fruit Read more Read less

Tobias Stranover, 1684–after 1735

between 1710 and 1724

Oil on canvas

Yale Center for British Art

A still life painting features a variety of fruits, including apples, grapes, plums, and a melon, arranged in baskets and on a surface. Several birds, including parrots and smaller songbirds, are depicted among the fruit, along with a squirrel on the right. Stranover’s imagined scene places British flora and fauna alongside imported species. The South American parrots are joined by animals common to Britain, all perched among fruits from the English countryside as well as the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Stranover showcases his painterly skill to create an idyllic vision of an integrated, prosperous world. In reality, however, imported commodities such as parrots and pomegranates were the fruits of exploitative systems of colonialism and capitalist trade, and were available only to the wealthiest members of the British elite. Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection