Mary Jane Peale (1827-1902)

Still Life with Bowl of Fruit

Details

Mary Jane Peale (1827-1902)
Still Life with Bowl of Fruit
signed, dated and inscribed 'Original/by/Mary J Peale/Riverside/1860/The large dark grapes/received the prize at the Agricultural fair in/Reading' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
19 x 27¼ in. (48.3 x 69.2 cm.)

Provenance

Victor D. Spark, New York.
William J. Poplack, Birmingham, Michigan.

Literature

Detroit Institute of Arts, The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists, exhibition catalogue, Detroit, Michigan, 1967, p. 139, no. 225, illustrated.
Westmoreland Museum of Art, Penn's Promise: Still-Life Painting in Pennsylvania, 1795-1930, exhibition catalogue, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, 1988, p. 71, no. 83, illustrated.
Schwarz Gallery, One Hundred Fifty Years of Philadelphia Still-Life Painting, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 1997, n.p., illustrated.

Exhibited

Detroit, Michigan, Detroit Institute of Arts, and elsewhere, The Peale Family: Three Generations of American Artists, January 18-March 5, 1967, no. 225.
Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Westmoreland Museum of Art, Penn's Promise: Still-Life Painting in Pennsylvania 1795-1930, May 1988, no. 83.

Lot Essay

The only daughter of Rubens Peale, Mary Jane Peale was one of the third generation of the Peale family and shared the family's proclivity for the arts. She studied with Thomas Sully and her uncle, Rembrandt Peale, after which she began her career as a portrait painter in New York. It was not, however, until she returned to Pennsylvania, to care for her father, that she took up still life painting in earnest. Works such as Still Life with Bowl of Fruit demonstrate why this is most acclaimed genre of her ouevre.

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