MURA · THE COLLECTION

Quiet Afternoon

A cat sleeps on a table by an open window, beside a green cup, a bowl of oranges, a closed book and a jug of olive branches. Outside, a pale sun hangs over a bay with a white house on the headland. Nothing is about to happen, and that is the subject.

Mura Studio · 2026 · Gouache · Contemporary · story written 25 September 2026

What is going on

It is the hour after lunch in a house by the sea. The table is laid for one person who has gone somewhere, and the cat has taken the warm spot. The room is painted in rose and terracotta, the sea in a grey-blue that has no glare in it, and the light is the flat, kind light of early afternoon in the south.

How to look at it

Follow the olive branches. They rise from the jug and reach across the window, so that the landscape outside is seen through leaves, the way it would be from a chair at that table. Then count the things on the cloth: cup, bowl, book, cat. Each is painted as a simple shape with one shadow. The picture asks nothing.

Why it is in Mura

Slow Living, mood serene. It is the picture the collection was named for, and on a television in a busy room it lowers the temperature by a degree or two.