About This Artwork

William Michael Harnett
American, born Ireland, 1848-1892

Just Dessert, 1891

Oil on canvas
56.6 x 68 cm (22 1/4 x 26 3/4 in.)
Signed, lower right: "Harnett / 1891"
Friends of American Art Collection, 1942.50

Exhibition, Publication and Ownership Histories

Exhibition History

Milwaukeee Art Institute, Nineteenth Century American Masters, Feb. 20–Mar. 28, 1948, no. 22, no cat.

New York, Downtown Gallery, Harnett Centennial Exhibition, Apr. 13–May 1, 1948, cat. 18.

Durand Art Institute, Lake Forest College, Ill., A Century of American Painting: Masterpieces Loaned by The Art Institute of Chicago, June 10–16, 1957, cat. 11.

New York, M. Knoedler and Company, Apr.–May 1958.
New York, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Still–Life Paintings of William M. Harnett, Mar. 16–June 14, 1992; traveled to Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum, July 17– Oct. 18, 1992, Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco, Nov. 14, 1992–Feb. 14, 1993, Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, Mar. 14–June 13, 1993.

Nagaoka, Japan, Niigata Prefectural Museum of Modern Art, Masterworks of Modern Art from The Art Institute of Chicago, Apr. 20–Mar. 29, 1994, cat. 49; traveled to Nagoya, Japan, Aichi Prefectural Museum of Art, June 10–July 24, 1994, Yokohama, Japan, Yokohama Museum of Art, Aug. 6–Sept. 25, 1994.

Publication History

Wolfgang Born, Still Life Painting in America (Oxford University Press, 1947), fig. 80.

Art Institute of Chicago, Masterpieces in The Art Institute of Chicago (Chicago: Hillison and Etten Co., 1952).

Alfred Frankenstein, After the Hunt, William Harnett and other American Still Life Painters, 1870–1900 (University of California Press, 1953), pp. 67, 92, 173–74, cat. 124.

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1961), p. 210 (ill.).

Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago (Art Institute of Chicago, 1968), pp. 216, 386 (ill.).

John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago (Abrams, 1970), p. 107 (ill.).

David Hanks, “American Paintings at The Art Institute of Chicago, Part II, The Nineteenth Century,” Magazine Antiques 104, 5 (Nov. 1973), pp. 895–905 (ill.).

Doreen Bolger, Marc Simpson, and John Wilmerding, William M. Harnett (Abrams, 1992), pp. 82, 166, 187, 189, 219, pl. 47.

Judith A. Barter et al., American Arts at The Art Institute of Chicago: From Colonial Times to World War I (Art Institute of Chicago, 1998), pp. 256-59, no. 125.

Ownership History

Private collection, Philadelphia; Downtown Gallery, New York City, by 1942; sold to The Art Institute of Chicago, 1942.