Still Life

Artist James Peale (American, 1749–1831)

Date1825

Mediumoil on Eastern white pine panel

Dimensionspanel: 46.8 × 67.5 cm (18 7/16 × 26 9/16 in.)
framed: 60.6 × 81.4 cm (23 7/8 × 32 1/16 in.)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineMuseum Purchase

Terms

Object number1939.37

DescriptionStill Life represents a bowl of grapes with additional clusters of grapes and three apples arranged in a shallow space. The largest part of the composition is devoted to the ceramic bowl, which is placed to the right of center and is filled with several bunches of green and dark-purple grapes. The pale-blue bowl is of a neoclassical design, with a round base and flaring sides. The concave side of the bowl is decorated with a series of vertically oriented, stylized blue leaves alternating with smaller gold ones. A narrow band at the base of the bowl is ornamented with horizontally arranged blue and gold diamonds. The top edge of that band and the rim of the bowl are trimmed with a gold bead. The grapes in the bowl are still attached to their vines, and three large grape leaves are carefully delineated. Many of the green grapes at left and in the back of the bowl are tinged with red. Peale toned each grape from dark at center to light at the outer edge to suggest volume, and he added touches of white to convey the illusion of translucence. Two tendrils at the tops of the vines spiral in elaborate arabesques. Light comes from the space on the viewer’s side of the scene, illuminating the grapes in the front and at the left side of the bowl and casting the back and right into shadow. A secondary light shines on the back right of the composition.

To the right and behind the bowl is a small red apple. Two larger apples rest to the left of the bowl; the one on the far left is mostly red with some yellow, and the other is mostly yellow with touches of red. A bunch of dark-purple grapes and another of red grapes rest behind those two apples, and a small group of dark-purple grapes is visible in the negative space under the left rim of the bowl and the overhanging green grapes. Another strand of grapes is arranged in front of the pair of apples, forming a concave curve, with one or two grapes hanging over the edge at each end of the strand. A single grape on a separate stem rests on the wooden surface.

The bowl and fruit are arranged on a reddish-brown board, which may be a shelf or a tabletop. Its polished surface faintly reflects the objects. The background is dark below and above the board and lightens to gray at the center-right.
Label TextMembers of an influential family of Philadelphia painters, James Peale and his nephew Raphaelle (1774–1825) have been credited with setting a standard in still-life painting that contributed to a broader taste for this subject among American patrons during the 1820s. James began his artistic career as a portrait and miniature painter under the tutelage of his older, influential brother Charles Willson Peale (q.v.). In an effort to avoid competing with one another in a tight art market during the post-Revolution era, the brothers agreed to divide their work in portraiture: James focused on miniature painting, while Charles did larger oils on canvas. As James faced failing eyesight during the 1810s, he turned from the detailed work of miniature portraits to larger still-life and landscape subjects. Remarkably, he was seventy-six years old when he painted this elegant arrangement of apples and grapes spilling out of a Chinese export-porcelain bowl. James clearly delighted in the variety of textures- from the smooth sheen of porcelain and mahogany to the cloudy moisture of the grapes and the serrated edges of their leaves. The illusion of reality is heightened by placement of the fruit at the edge of a tabletop as if to tempt the viewer to reach for it.Provenance"A private family in Philadelphia"; purchased by the Worcester Art Museum from Arthur Sussel, a Philadelphia antiques dealer.

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