The Bloom of the Grape, Theodore Clement Steele

Oil on canvas, roughly 30 x 40″ (76 x 100 cm). Link is to zoomable image on Google Art Project; high-res downloadable file on Wikimedia Commons; original is in the Indianapolis Museum of Art.

If, like me, you’re wondering why you don’t see any grape vines in Steele’s wonderfully painterly evocation of the late fall landscape, here is a line from the museum’s gallery label:

“The title refers to a white, gauzy veil known as the ‘bloom’ that covers grapes at harvest time. Steele said the hazy, frosty days of late October and early November reminded him of the bloom of the grape.”