Carlo Crivelli's Mysterious Cucumbers

Visually walking through Carlo Crivelli's Annunciation is a majestic, otherworldly experience. With its perspectival complexity, multilayered architecture, a carnival of ornamental details - the painting is a feast for the eyes. But then our eyes land on the edge of this beautiful work - right next to Crivelli's signature we find a small apple and what seems to be a cucumber, falling off the ledge into our world. Is this a Renaissance painting or a fruit & vegetable aisle at a supermarket?

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There is a lot of debate as to why Crivelli was so fond of apples and cucumbers in his paintings:

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Some explain it as a stylistic feature of Crivelli's leaning towards a Gothic style of art.

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Others suggest that fruit and vegetable festoons were common ornamentations at festivals in the Marche region where Crivelli worked most of his life.

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A more specific iconographic attribution signifies the apple as Eve's sin and the cucumber (because it is full of seeds) as a symbol of Christ’s resurrection.

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Another widely accepted explanation takes into account all of the above and assumes that Crivelli used trompe l'oeil objects as the nexus (or, conversely, a barrier) between the earthly and the divine. Aside from the edible stuffs, he used this trick with other things - like flies, for instance.

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In 1457, Crivelli was sentenced to six months in prison and fined 200 lire for having an affair with Tarsia Cortese - a wife of a sailor. Poor Tarsia received the same sentence and also lost her dowry. Times were tough for unfaithful lovers in Renaissance Italy. Crivelli left Venice soon after serving his prison sentence, never to return. He travelled and worked all over Italy, finally settling in the Marche but he continued to sign his works "Carlo Crivelli from Venice" until his death. One last theory, proposed by Thomas Golsenne, suggests that the humble cucumber may have also served as a form of the artist's signature - a representation of the artist himself.

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