Samuel Marsden Brookes immigrated from England to Illinois with his family as a youth. In 1839, he took drawing lessons, his only known art instruction, from two portrait painters in Chicago. He began earning his living as an itinerant portrait painter in 1841, traveling to small towns seeking commissions. By 1855 he had also produced a series of paintings for the State Historical Society in Wisconsin.

Brookes departed for San Francisco in April 1862. He initially supported himself as a portraitist, but rapidly became the state’s preeminent still-life painter. This composition is an elaborate example of Brooke's ability to paint fruit – in this case a pineapple – a symbol of welcome and good cheer. Brookes also includes drapery, a knife, and an urn with painted-porcelain panels. As his career progressed, he would eliminate such details, limiting his compositions to fruit hanging against stone walls.