Cucumis Turcicus

Artist Albrecht Meyer (active c. 1542)

Artist Heinrich Füllmaurer (flourished 1526–1546)

Printmaker Veit Rudolph Specklin (active 1542, died 1550)

Date1542

Mediumwoodcut on paper, hand-colored

Dimensions14 × 9 inches (35.6 × 22.9 cm)

Credit LineBequest of H.J. Lutcher Stark, 1965

Object number11.50.2.403_Cucumis Turcicus

ClassificationsInformation Artifacts

Label TextLeonhart Fuchs produced the first published images of the pumpkin. He was a German doctor and botanist. Fuchs wrote the book whose title translates as Notable Commentaries on the History of Plants. It was an herbal, a publication about plants used for healing and for eating. Fuchs introduced his European readers to plants native to North America, such as the pumpkin. The illustration of the pumpkin seen here shows the pumpkin as a pale brownish orange, rather than the vivid orange of today. In Fuchs’s time, knowledge about the pumpkin was still limited.

ProvenancePurchased July 22, 1960 through (Nada Kramar, Washington, D.C.) by H.J. Lutcher Stark [1887-1965]; bequeathed September 2, 1965 to the Nelda C. and H.J. Lutcher Stark Foundation; accessioned to the Stark Museum of Art

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On view