[Sca-cooks] Re: Tomato evidence

[Diamond Randall]

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>Has anyone discussed   the produce in the painting *Summer* (painted
>1563) by Giuseppe Arcimbaldo (1527-1593).  There is an image of it at:
>http://www.abcgallery.com/A/arcimboldo/arcimboldo2.html[1]

>     The image on my computer screen is harder to see than the 15 year
>old postcard I have of the image.  Above the cherries and below the
>raspberries/blackberries is a fruit that looks like a plum tomato to me,
>albeit a golden one.  I have not seen modern yellow plum tomatoes, and I
>don't  know the shapes of old varieties--I am interested in Northern
>Europe, and am content to think of the tomato as out of period for what I
>do.
> Elizabeth

Certainly there is an ear of corn in the obvious and appropriate location
(he does this again in Vertumnus).  He also uses a fig there as an earring
(again).
I think the ovals you are seeing are really yellow plums.  I base this more
on the stems and leaves than the fruit itself.  He uses a ripe fig for an
earring in the depiction Autumn.  In Europe, figs are late bearing fruits
(except in the area of Turkey).   However, I do think that the chin and
lips of Summer are tomatoes, a large yellow-orangish pear-shaped one
and smaller oval cherry tomatoes. The cap of the larger one is very
like a tomato stem attachment and not like a fruit stem.
Is this consistant with the early types we know in Europe at that time?
Does anyone have any suggestions what these might
alternately be?  Not cherries or plums certainly.  What other known
produce could have those forms?  It is also interesting to note the eggplant
behind the ear and what would the small green grape-like ones be beside it?.
In the Vegetable Gardener, we see interestingly enough, several asparagus
peas.
In the Winter painting there are some elongated green fruits above the
forehead
above the grapes.  What would they be?  Also note the medlar in front of the
neck region and the cornel cherry(?) at the base of the neck. The produce
in both seems composed of the varieties available primarily ripened
in that season, with Autumn heavy with nuts, roots and late fruits.  Summer
has mid season produce mainly.  What is essential is that ALL of the depicted
produce composing the figures is an edible rather than a decorative plant
(discounting the flowers of the border spaces of course).  If that is a case
of a concensus of identity of corn and tomatoes being depicted, it says
something about the use of them that has eluded the printed word. If these
were
not being commonly eaten and widely known, I don't think they would have
been included in these paintings, especially the visual pun of the corn.
Akim

--- Diamond Randall
--- ringofkings at mindspring.com[2]
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===References:===
  1. http://www.abcgallery.com/A/arcimboldo/arcimboldo2.html
  2. mailto:ringofkings at mindspring.com