Theude Grönland (1817-76) was born at Altona, near Hamburg, in 1817. Chiefly a still-life painter typically remembered for his representations of fruit and flowers, Grönland transferred from the Copenhagen Academy, where he had been studying, to Paris where he achieved a first class medal at the 1848 Salon and a subsequent second class accolade at the 1855 Exposition Universelle. He became a member of the Danish Academy in 1858.

A spray of pink and white azaleas beside an orange, which has been peeled to expose carefully-rendered flesh. This work exhibits that interplay between light and deep colour symptomatic of the body of Grönland’s work. The delicacy with which Grönland has depicted each individualised petal is further testament to his success with the still-life genre.