Fruit Piece

Public Domain

1860

Hannah Brown Skeele
American, 1829–1901

This pristinely arranged still life by Hannah Brown Skeele features native-grown produce as well as imported specialties such as bananas, oranges, pineapple, and sugar cubes. Skeele skillfully rendered the various surfaces and textures of the food and tableware, and her composition was likely to appeal to middle- and upper-class consumers at midcentury. Born in Maine and active in Missouri, the artist exhibited Fruit Piece the year it was painted, then already in the collection of a Saint Louis businessman.

The tropical fruits and sweetener were products of empire. Enslaved and indentured laborers of color cultivated such crops in the West Indies and Central and South America. The goods were transported from those regions to New Orleans and then northward along the Mississippi River.

Status: On View, Gallery 173
Department: Arts of the Americas

Artist: Hannah Brown Skeele
Title: Fruit Piece
Place: Saint Louis (Object made in)
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.: 1860
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 50.8 × 60.6 cm (20 × 23 7/8 in.)
Credit Line: Purchased with funds provided by Charles C. Haffner, III, Mrs. Harold T. Martin, Mrs. Herbert A Vance, and Jill Burnside Zeno; through prior acquisition of the George F. Harding Collection
Reference Number: 2001.6
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/156596/manifest.json

Sarah E. Kelly, “Fruit Piece,” Art Institute of Chicago Museum Studies 30, no. 1 (2004): 12–13 (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 (Art Institute of Chicago, 2005): 37 (ill.).
Judith Barter et al., Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine, exh. cat. (Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2013), 85–87, 226, cat. 62, fig. 6 (ill.).
Judith A. Barter, Elizabeth McGoey, et al., American Silver in the Art Institute of Chicago (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 18, fig. 8 (ill.).

Saint Louis, Western Academy of Art, First Annual Exhibition, 1860, cat. 303.
Art Institute of Chicago, Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine, Nov. 10, 2013–Jan. 27, 2014, cat. 62; Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum of American Art, Feb. 22–May 18, 2014.
St. Louis Art Museum, Art Along the Rivers: A Bicentennial Celebration, Oct. 3, 2021–Jan. 9, 2022, cat. 34 (ill.).

Edgar Ames, Esq., St. Louis, 1860; to Lucy Semple Ames, 1861; by descent through family. Sold, Barridoff Galleries, Portland, ME, August 6, 1997, lot 183, as Fruit. With Vance Jordan Fine Art, New York, by 2000; sold to the Art Institute of Chicago, 2001.

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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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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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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.