Still Life—Strawberries, Nuts, &c.

CC0 Public Domain Designation

1822

Raphaelle Peale (American, 1774–1825)

During Raphaelle Peale’s time, still life was not esteemed by most artists, relegated to the bottom of the hierarchy of painting subjects. Yet Peale ignored its low status and is now acknowledged as America’s first professional still-life painter and leading practitioner of the genre. Born into an artistic Philadelphia family, Raphaelle was the eldest son of Charles Willson Peale and the nephew of James Peale, both artists; his siblings were, like him, named after famous old master painters (he had brothers named Rembrandt, Titian, and Rubens). Characterized by crisp forms and serenely balanced compositions, most of Peale’s still lifes portray food, crockery, and glassware arranged on a plain shelf, parallel to the picture plane. In this particularly fine example, the rhythmic balance of fruit, nuts, and Chinese export porcelain is enlivened by the diagonal branch of grapes becoming raisins and an orange leaf. These objects are brightly illuminated against a bare, dark background in the manner of the dramatic still-life compositions of 17th-century painters such as Juan Sánchez Cotán. Peale may have seen the Spanish artist’s work when it was shown at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in 1818.

Status: On View, Gallery 169
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Raphaelle Peale
Title: Still Life—Strawberries, Nuts, &c.
Place: Philadelphia (Place depicted:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1822
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Inscriptions: Signed recto, lower right, on table edge, in black paint: "Raphaelle Peale Pinsct 1822"
Dimensions: 41.1 × 57.8 cm (16 3/16 × 22 3/4 in.)
Credit Line: Gift of Jamee J. and Marshall Field
Reference Number: 1991.100
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/120154/manifest.json

Dorothy C. Miller and Alfred H. Barr, Jr., eds., American Realists and Magic Realists, exh. cat. (Museum of Modern Art, 1943), 9, 63, cat. 13 (ill.).
Wolfgang Born, Still–Life Painting in America (Oxford University Press, 1947), 13–14, fig. 23 (ill.).
Charles Coleman Sellers, Raphaelle Peale, 1774–1825: Still Lifes and Portraits, exh. cat. (Milwaukee Art Center, 1959), cat. 4.
Alfred Frankenstein, The Reality of Appearance, The Trompe L’Oeil Tradition in American Painting (New York Graphic Society, 1970), 36–37, cat. 7 (ill.).
William H. Gerdts and Russell E. Burke, American Still–Life Painting (Praeger Publishers, 1971), 31.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Three Centuries of American Art, exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1976), 255, cat. 213 (ill.) (as Still Life with Strawberries).
William H. Gerdts, Painters of The Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still-Life, 1801-1939 (University of Missouri Press, 1981), 59–60, fig. 2.9 (ill.) (as Still Life with Wild Strawberries).
Beatrice B. Garvan, Federal Philadelphia, 1785–1825, The Athens of the Western World, exh. cat. (Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1987), 82, cat. 230, fig. 50 (ill.).
Tom Armstrong, “The New Field–McCormick Galleries of the Art Institute of Chicago,” Magazine Antiques 134, no. 4 (Oct., 1988): 822–834, pl. 8 (ill.).
Nicolai Cikovsky, Jr., et al., Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes, exh. cat. (National Gallery of Art, 1988), 53, fig. 41 (ill.).
Art Institute of Chicago, The Art Institute of Chicago Annual Report 1990–91 (Art Institute of Chicago, 1991), 1, fig. 1 (ill.).
“Principales acquisitions des musées en 1991,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, no. 1478 (Mar., 1992): 71, fig. 243 (ill.).
Lillian B. Miller, “Father and Son: The Relationship of Charles Willson Peale and Raphaelle Peale,” American Art Journal 25, nos. 1 and 2 (1993), 4–61 (ill.).
Annie V. F. Storr, “Raphaelle Peale’s Strawberries, Nuts & c: A Riddle of Enlightened Science,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 21, no. 1 (1995): 24, 35 (ill.), https://www.jstor.org/stable/4102810.
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), 137–8 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, “True to the Senses and False in Its Essence: Still–Life and Trompe l’Oeil Painting in Victorian America,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 31, no. 1 (2005): 34–35, fig. 2 (ill.), https://www.jstor.org/stable/4104472.
Judith Barter et al., Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine, exh. cat. (Art Institute of Chicago, 2013), 64–66, 225, cat. 54, fig. 8 (ill.).
James Rondeau, Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 2017) 44 (ill.).
James Rondeau, Paintings at the Art Institute of Chicago: Highlights of the Collection (Art Institute of Chicago, 2025), 50 (ill.).

New York, Museum of Modern Art, American Realists and Magic Realists, Feb. 10–Mar. 21, 1943, cat. 13; Buffalo, Albright Gallery, Apr. 5–May 5, 1943; Minneapolis Institute of Arts, July 1–30, 1943; San Francisco Museum of Art, Aug. 23–Sept. 19, 1943; Art Gallery of Toronto, Nov. 12–Dec. 19, 1943; Cleveland Museum of Art, Jan. 1–29, 1944.
Milwaukee Art Center, Raphaelle Peale, Still Lifes and Portraits, Jan. 15–Feb. 15, 1959, cat. 4, as Still Life; New York, M. Knoedler & Company, Mar. 2–31, 1959.
Winston–Salem, NC, Public Library, A Rationale for Modern Art, Oct. 1–21, 1959; MO, Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, Washington University in St. Louis, Nov. 2–22, 1959; New York, Time Inc., Dec. 7–18, 1959; Mansfield, OH, Kingwood Center, Jan. 3–24, 1960; MI, Midland Art Association, Feb. 5–25, 1960; Miami Beach Art Center, Mar. 1–31, 1960; Dallas, Southern Methodist University, Apr. 12–May 3, 1960; Seattle, Charles and Emma Frye Museum, May 15–June 6, 1960; San Francisco Museum of Art, June 16–July 17, 1960; Norwich, CT, Slater Memorial Museum, Oct. 10–30, 1960 (organized by the American Federation of Arts).
New Haven, CT, Yale University Art Gallery, American Art from Alumni Collections, Apr. 25–June 16, 1968, cat. 79 (as Still Life with Strawberries).
New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, 18th– and 19th– Century American Art from Private Collections, June 27–Sept. 11, 1972, cat. 49, as Bowl of Strawberries.
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Three Centuries of American Art, Apr. 11–Oct. 10, 1976, cat. 213 (as Still Life with Strawberries).
Tulsa, OK, Philbrook Art Center, Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801–1939, Sept. 27–Nov. 1, 1981, no cat. no. (as Still Life with Wild Strawberries); CA, Oakland Museum, Dec. 8, 1981–Jan. 24, 1982; MD, Baltimore Museum of Art, Mar. 2–Apr. 25, 1982; New York, National Academy of Design, May 18–July 4, 1982.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine, Nov. 10, 2013–Jan. 27, 2014, cat. 54; Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Feb. 22–May 18, 2014.

Mr. Feldman, Philadelphia, by 1940. James Graham and Sons Gallery, New York, by 1941. Robert C. Graham (1913–1994) and Edith Graham (1917–2003; born Edith Altschul), New York, by 1946; sold to Marshall Field V and Jamee J. Field (1947–2020; born Jamee Beckwith Jacobs), Chicago, 1982 [on loan to the Art Institute, 1982–1991]; given by them to the Art Institute of Chicago, 1991.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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