Still Life of Plums by Rinaldo Cuneo, Oil on Canvas P3599

A beautiful still life from Rinaldo Cuneo (1877–1939) showing a cluster of dark plums spilling from a paper bag onto a rumpled white cloth, set against the turned spindles of an old wooden chair. 

The San Francisco painter became so associated with his native city that he was dubbed "the Painter of San Francisco." Best known for his Bay Area cityscapes and waterfront scenes, Cuneo was equally at home in the still life tradition, and this piece shows why.

Cuneo trained at the California School of Design under Arthur Mathews and Gottardo Piazzoni before studying in Paris, and exhibited widely throughout the Bay Area from the 1910s through his death in 1939, including a mural commission for Coit Tower in 1934.

Signed lower right. Presented in a carved giltwood frame. No date is inscribed on this canvas, but the sturdy, weighted brushwork suggests a mature-period work, likely from the 1920s or 30s.

Art measures 20" x 24", in frame 24.5" x 28.5"