James Nienhuis, a horticulture professor at the University of Wisconsin, uses the Stanchi painting in his classes to teach about the history of crop breeding.
"It's fun to go to art museums and see the still-life pictures, and see what our vegetables looked like 500 years ago," he told me. In many cases, it's our only chance to peer into the past, since we can't preserve vegetables for hundreds of years.
Which led me to this article: Here's what 9,000 years of breeding has done to corn, peaches, and other crops
Amazing infographics…
