Jean-Baptiste Oudry (1686-1755)
Oil on canvas
Versailles, Musée National des Châteaux de Versailles et de Trianon, inv. MV 7035
In the 18th century, the acclimatisation of the pineapple, which came from the New World (mainly South America and the Caribbean) represented the cutting edge of experimental cultivation in the royal gardens of Europe, where growing this fruit which was so sensitive to cold and damp was a real feat. After several barren attempts, two pineapples developed from suckers, received by Louis XV from America, bore fruit in winter 1733. Jean-Baptiste Oudry made a veritable portrait of this first Versailles pineapple that Queen Marie Antoinette hung a few decades later in her Gold Room.
