Girardet Alexandre

Alexandre Girardet carried a tiny paintbrush everywhere he went, sketching fruit bowls in the café corners of 19th-century Paris even while waiting for his coffee to cool. He once painted the same peach so many times he could do it from memory—down to the fuzzy dimple where the stem sat. Try your eye on his Coș cu fructe print: the plums look so real you’ll half expect the juice to drip onto the page.