Apple of My Eyes by Xingwei Huang

Apples appear in many religious traditions, often as a mystical or forbidden fruit. Renaissance painters may also have been influenced by the story of the golden apples in the Garden of Hesperides. As a result, in the story of Adam and Eve, the apple became a symbol for knowledge, immortality and temptation.

Do artists just pick apple as a random fruit to depict in their artworks or is it highly associated with cultural significance? If it is then within Met’s collection, which continent uses apple as a metaphor more than others? And which media is more popular being used to depict apples?