Still Life with Liqueur and Fruit
Framed: 20 3/16 x 26 3/16 x 2 3/4 inches (51.28 x 66.52 x 6.99 cm)
- 211
Exhibition of American Painting, M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and California Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, June 7–July 7, 1935, no. 184.
The Painters of Still Life, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Conn., January 25–February 15, 1938, no. 87.
Survey of American Painting, Carnegie Institute, Pittsburgh, October 24–December 15, 1940, no. 66.
Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes, National Gallery, Washington, D.C., October 16, 1988–January 29, 1989; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, February 16–April 16, 1989, no. 53.
American Still-Life Painting of the Nineteenth Century, Godel & Co., Inc., Fine Art, New York, April 14-June 6, 2008, no. 1.
Magnificent Gifts for the 75th, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, February 11–April 4, 2010, unnumbered.
Still Life with Liqueur and Fruit is an exceptional early example of Raphaelle Peale’s “dining room pictures” and is one of only some 50 examples known today. The artist’s still lifes were considered extraordinary long before the vogue for still life took hold later in the century.
Delicacies from far-off origins, associated with the types of desserts offered in well-to-do households, are presented here in tempting detail. The meticulously rendered textures and skillfully executed reflections underscore Peale’s interest in scientific naturalism. The flawlessly balanced composition speaks to the desire in the early Republic for rational order, although the suggestion of extravagance simmers just below the surface.
to [?] Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, September 1932;
to [?] Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, New York, after November 1946;
by descent to Eleanor Searle Whitney McCollum, Houston, Texas, until 2002;
to (Christie's, New York, December 5, 2002, lot 20);
to Howard Godel, New York, December 5, 2002;
to The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, MO, 2008.
Edward Alden Jewell, "Whitney Museum Opens Show," New York Times, January 10, 1933, 25.
Exhibition of American Painting, exh. cat. (San Francisco: M. H. de Young Memorial Museum and California Palace of the Legion of Honor, 1935), unpaginated.
Whitney Museum of American Art: History, Purpose and Activities with a Complete List of Works in its Permanent Collection to June, 1937 (New York: Whitney Museum of American Art, 1937), 21.
The Painters of Still Life, exh. cat. (Hartford, Conn.: Wadsworth Atheneum, 1938), unpaginated.
Survey of American Painting, exh. cat. (Pittsburgh: Department of Fine Arts, Carnegie Institute, 1940), unpaginated, pl. 22.
E. P. Richardson, "New Horizons," Magazine of Art 39 (November 1946): 281.
Wolfgang Born, Still-life Painting in America (New York: Oxford University Press, 1947; New York: Hacker Art Books, 1973; Whitefish, Mont.: Kessinger Publishing, 2005), 13, fig. 24.
Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes, exh. cat. (Washington, D.C.: National Gallery of Art, 1988), 50, 66.
Carol Troyen, "Philadelphia. Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes," Burlington Magazine 131, no. 1031 (February 1989): 179.
Alexander Nemerov, The Body of Raphaelle Peale: Still Life and Selfhood, 1812-1824 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2001), pl. 19, 165-66.
Thomas
Quick, American Still-Life Painting of
the Nineteenth Century, exh. cat. (New York: Godel & Co., Inc., Fine
Art, 2008), 13, 34.
