  In the early 1880s, Henri Poincar\'e discovered a new equilibrium figure for
uniformly-rotating fluid masses -- the pear, or piriform figure -- and
speculated that in certain circumstances the pear splits into two unequal
parts, and provides thereby a model for the origin of binary stars. The
contemporary emergence of photometric and spectroscopic studies of variable
stars fueled the first models of eclipsing binaries, and provided empirical
support for a realist view of equilibrium figures -- including the pear -- in
the cosmic realm. The paper reviews astrophysical interpretation of the
Poincar\'e pear and the Poincar\'e-Darwin fission hypothesis with respect to
research on variable stars from 1885 to 1901.
