16" H x 13" W

Hand-painted Terra Cotta with cast pewter base and turned wooden knob

It's a gentleman's joke this Fruit Compote.  We saw the shape.  It was a pile of fruit. Every pottery in Tuscany has it, like a black dress in the closet . . . what you pull out when you don't know what to ware.  It was a big figurine of ceramic fruit and the texture of a basket, all cast as one piece, then painted to be “real”.  It was there, everywhere.  So we smirked when we saw it . . . like the dog dropped on the doorstep after months of looking for where it belongs and finally coming home, back to his eyes, meeting ours.

So we decided to work with it  . . . since it was there.  We cut it off the molded basket base and found the fruit actually fit a traditional conical compote bowl,  . . . like a lid!  A lidded conical compote container!  

And then came the game.  We tried to make the fruit disappear, and appear as something completely else.  But we can't.   So we giggle again. 

 And the fruit winks through.