James Peale came from one of America's first artistic families. He served in the Continental Army during the American Revolution and settled in Philadelphia after the war, where he became an accomplished painter of portrait miniatures. When his eyesight began to fail around 1810, he began painting larger portraits, landscapes, and realistic and intimate still-life paintings. This painting, which typifies the growing taste for fruit still lifes during the 1820s and 1830s, offers a palette of contrasting colors displayed in peaches, pears, and multiple varieties of grapes. Some of the fruits sit in a bowl; others seem to spill more “naturally” across the surface of a table. The microscopic attention to detail shows Peale's background as a miniature painter and a student of the natural sciences.