Fruit Dish - "Quebec" c. 1936

This piece, a fruit dish called "Quebec," was crafted by Helmut Hiatt, who lived from 1855 to 1995. Imagine Hiatt, maybe hunched over, carefully applying the paint, figuring out how to get that scene of the ship and the town just right. It's not thick, gloppy paint, but thin and precise. You can almost feel the artist thinking, "How do I capture this moment, this place, on this dish?" The way he frames the central image with those decorative flourishes, leaves and eagles, it reminds me of folk art traditions, where everyday objects become canvases for storytelling. There’s something about the combination of the historical scene and the decorative border that makes you wonder about the relationship between past and present. It makes you want to pick it up, hold it, and imagine the stories it could tell.