The Fruit Basket

The Fruit Basket or Reversible Head with a Fruit Basket is a c.1590 oil-on-panel still life by the Italian painter Giuseppe Arcimboldo. It is held in the French & Company collection, in New York.^[1] When inverted, it shows an anthropomorphic head by pareidolia. The same painter also produced The Cook and The Gardener.

The Fruit Basket
The painting inverted
Artist	Giuseppe Arcimboldo
Year	c. 1590
Medium	oil on panel
Dimensions	56 cm × 42 cm (22 in × 17 in)
Location	French & Company collection, New York

Arcimboldo's reversible fruit basket painting is an early example of the fruit still life genre. It may have been the inspiration for Caravaggio's painting Boy with a Basket of Fruit. It may have also had an influence on Fede Galizia and Giovanni Ambrogio Figino, who would both later painted a number of fruit still lifes.^[2]

The painting inverted and the right way up