Two Hanging Apples
ca. 1890
De Scott Evans was a master of visual trickery, and here he plays a clever game with the viewer using a simple pair of apples. Notice the tiny label at the top reading "Stanley Davis New York"? That was actually one of Evans' many pseudonyms, a secret identity he used to sell his incredibly realistic trompe-l'œil paintings without saturating the market. The rough wooden board background and the delicate strings holding the red and yellow fruit are painted with such precision that you might instinctively reach out to grab a bite. It is a brilliant example of 19th-century American realism that turns a mundane still life into an interactive illusion.
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