The still life genre of painting is seldom compelling, or so I thought. Stanchi's still life shown here, painted sometime between 1645-1672, provides an invaluable depiction of watermelon as it was known in the 17th century. Vox ran a piece about this in July, and then updated it in August when some reddit users claimed that it was simply an under-ripe melon and not some old world 'proto-melon'. It seems that the black, ripe seeds within the flesh of the melon indicate that it is indeed a fully ripened watermelon.
Stanchi's subject matter, and attention to detail, serve art, history, and the evolution of the watermelon well. It's so much more than just a footnote in the annals of the still life.
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