About this artwork
In a career that spanned almost 70 years, Irving Penn produced groundbreaking work in the overlapping industries of fashion and fine–art photography. Still life played a central role for Penn, from his very first cover for Vogue in 1943 (an image of an arrangement of fashion accessories) to photographs made near the end of his life of vessels that he and his wife, Lisa Fonssagrives–Penn, had collected during their travels. An homage to the domestic interiors of 17th–century Dutch painter Johannes Vermeer, Still Life with Mouse is one such early example of Penn’s interest in the still–life genre. Vogue art director Alexander Liberman asked Penn to compose “the most symbolic picture of a farm kitchen” for a January 1948 “farm” issue of House and Garden. The published image was a cropped version of this photograph, in color, that included a model seated at left.
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Status
- Currently Off View
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Department
- Photography and Media
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Artist
- Irving Penn
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Title
- Still Life with Mouse, New York
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Place
- United States (Artist's nationality:)
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Date
- Made 1947
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Medium
- Gelatin silver print
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Edition
- of 78
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Inscriptions
- Inscribed verso: STILL LIFE (WITH MOUSE) / NEW YORK, 1942 [in a box] ; stamped and inscribed verso: PHOTOGRAPH BY IRVING PENN / Copyright © 1983 by Irving Penn, COURTESY OF VOGUE / Not to be reproduced without / written permission of the copyright owner and / THE CONDE NAST PUBLICATIONS INC. ; inscribed verso: 13590 P1 ; stamped and inscribed verso: SIGLED, SILVER PRINTS OF THIS NEGATIVE NOT EXCEEDING 78. ; inscribed verso: REF. 7110 ; signed and stamped verso: Irving Penn / IRVING PENN [in a circle] ; inscribed verso: Print made c. 1947. / IP:.
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Dimensions
- Image: 24.6 × 18.8 cm (9 11/16 × 7 7/16 in.); Paper: 25.3 × 20.3 cm (10 × 8 in.)
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Credit Line
- Gift of Irving Penn
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Reference Number
- 1996.163
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Copyright
- Copyright The Irving Penn Foundation