''Mound of Butter'' is a still life painting of a mound of

butter Butter is a dairy product made from the fat and protein components of churned cream. It is a semi-solid emulsion at room temperature, consisting of approximately 80% butterfat. It is used at room temperature as a spread, melted as a condimen ...

, by the 19th-century French realist painter Antoine Vollon made between 1875 and 1885. The painting is in the National Gallery of Art in

Washington D.C. ) , image_skyline = , image_caption = Clockwise from top left: the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial on the National Mall, United States Capitol, Logan Circle, Jefferson Memorial, White House, Adams Morgan, Na ...

, with the ''

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' calling it one of "Washington’s Crown Jewels".

Painter

Throughout his career, Vollon was best known as a painter of still lifes, this including his landscapes and

figure Figure may refer to: General *A shape, drawing, depiction, or geometric configuration *Figure (wood), wood appearance *Figure (music), distinguished from musical motif *Noise figure, in telecommunication *Dance figure, an elementary dance pattern ...

s. He was part of the French Realist movement, and in his lifetime achieved celebrity status, earning a number of prestigious awards such as the Legion of Honor, and declared "the Chardin of his day" (alluding to the French master of still life paintings, Jean-Baptiste-Siméon Chardin). In the late nineteenth century, Vollon's paintings maintained popularity, and thus many of his works are in private collections today. French writer

Alexandre Dumas, fils Alexandre Dumas (; 27 July 1824 – 27 November 1895) was a French author and playwright, best known for the romantic novel ''La Dame aux Camélias'' (''The Lady of the Camellias''), published in 1848, which was adapted into Giuseppe Verdi's 1 ...

and fellow American painter

William Merritt Chase William Merritt Chase (November 1, 1849October 25, 1916) was an American painter, known as an exponent of Impressionism and as a teacher. He is also responsible for establishing the Chase School, which later would become Parsons School of Design. ...

, for example, collected his various artworks. Vollon was a member of the

Académie des Beaux-Arts An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

, and his works were present at the Paris Salon for over thirty years, together with other realist

French painters The following is a chronological list of French artists working in visual or plastic media (plus, for some artists of the 20th century, performance art). For alphabetical lists, see the various subcategories of French artists. See other article ...

Charles-François Daubigny Charles-François Daubigny ( , , ; 15 February 181719 February 1878) was a French painter, one of the members of the Barbizon school, and is considered an important precursor of impressionism. He was also a prolific printmaker, mostly in etchin ...

Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (March 3, 1803August 22, 1860) was a French painter noted for his Orientalist works. Life Decamps was born in Paris. In his youth he travelled in the East, and reproduced Oriental life and scenery with a bold fidelity to ...

, Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot,

Henri Fantin-Latour Henri Fantin-Latour (14 January 1836 – 25 August 1904) was a French painter and lithographer best known for his flower paintings and group portraits of Parisian artists and writers. Biography He was born Ignace Henri Jean Théodore Fantin-La ...

and

Eugène Boudin Eugène Louis Boudin (; 12 July 18248 August 1898) was one of the first French landscape painters to paint outdoors. Boudin was a marine painter, and expert in the rendering of all that goes upon the sea and along its shores. His pastels, summary ...

, but Vollon is not quite as celebrated or remembered today as his other French Realist colleagues such as Corot and Fantin-Latour.

Painting

The painting is a great example of Vollon's still life art, depicting a mound of butter, coloured in rich, deep yellow colour (presumably from the carotene of the fresh plants that

grazing In agriculture, grazing is a method of animal husbandry whereby domestic livestock are allowed outdoors to roam around and consume wild vegetations in order to convert the otherwise indigestible (by human gut) cellulose within grass and other ...

cows Cattle (''Bos taurus'') are large, domesticated, cloven-hooved, herbivores. They are a prominent modern member of the subfamily Bovinae and the most widespread species of the genus ''Bos''. Adult females are referred to as cows and adult mal ...

commonly eat on barn fields). At the time when Antoine Vollon lived, it was usual to purchase the butter from the farmer, handmade. Typically, after milking, the cream is to be collected, churned and the butter lumps are kneaded by hand or worked with a spatula to get rid of the

moisture Moisture is the presence of a liquid, especially water, often in trace amounts. Small amounts of water may be found, for example, in the air (humidity), in foods, and in some commercial products. Moisture also refers to the amount of water vapo ...

from it, because the high amounts of buttermilk would shorten its storage life. Back then, butter was usually stored wrapped in a

cheesecloth Cheesecloth is a loose-woven gauze-like carded cotton cloth used primarily in cheesemaking and cooking. Grades Cheesecloth is available in at least seven different grades, from open to extra-fine weave. Grades are distinguished by the nu ...

, in a cool place. In the painting, the butter mound's cloth is falling loosely over a couple of

egg An egg is an organic vessel grown by an animal to carry a possibly fertilized egg cell (a zygote) and to incubate from it an embryo within the egg until the embryo has become an animal fetus that can survive on its own, at which point the a ...

s beside it. The painting also has thick marks layered on top of the artist's brush-work, probably meant to illustrate the marks after the

butter knife In common usage, a butter knife may refer to any non-serrated table knife designed with a dull edge and rounded point; formal cutlery patterns make a distinction between such a place knife (or table knife) and a butter knife. In this usage, a bu ...

was used to spread butter with; or the

wooden Wood is a porous and fibrous structural tissue found in the stems and roots of trees and other woody plants. It is an organic materiala natural composite of cellulose fibers that are strong in tension and embedded in a matrix of lignin tha ...

spatula A spatula is a broad, flat, flexible blade used to mix, spread and lift material including foods, drugs, plaster and paints. In medical applications, "spatula" may also be used synonymously with tongue depressor. The word ''spatula'' derives f ...

, used to spread the butter with and also used in producing the butter. Kitchen scenes,

food preparation Food is any substance consumed by an organism for nutritional support. Food is usually of plant, animal, or fungal origin, and contains essential nutrients, such as carbohydrates, fats, proteins, vitamins, or minerals. The substance is ing ...

, and depiction of everyday objects were a usual subject for still lifes in Vollon's time.

References

{{reflist, 2 French paintings 1870s paintings Collections of the National Gallery of Art Still life paintings Food and drink paintings

Painter

Painting

See also

References