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A speckled yellow apple and bunches of purple and green grapes are arranged next to an intricately pierced white bowl piled with more apples and grapes in this almost square still life painting. The objects sit on a sand-colored stone ledge, and the fruit gleams in bright light coming from the upper left. Sitting to the left of the basket, the yellow apple has brown spots and a worm hole near the top. In front of it, the green grapes partially cascade over the front edge of the ledge. The purple grapes lie in the shadow behind the apple. The white bowl has a wide, flaring mouth rimmed with dark blue, and sits to our right of center. It is pierced with four rows of narrowly spaced, undulating waves that spread out from a central eight-sided medallion. One red and two more yellow apples, one of which also has a small wormhole, sit along the lip of the bowl. They are topped by a cluster of green grapes framed by green leaves and a stem that angles into the upper right corner of the painting. The background is silvery gray to our right, where the light falls, and is in black shadow in the upper left.

James Peale

Fruit Still Life with Chinese Export Basket, 1824

West Building, Main Floor — Gallery 69-A

Medium

oil on wood

Dimensions

overall: 37.8 x 45.6 cm (14 7/8 x 17 15/16 in.)

framed: 57.8 x 65.4 x 9.8 cm (22 3/4 x 25 3/4 x 3 7/8 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Evans, in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art

Accession Number

1990.7.1

Artists / Makers

James Peale (artist) American, 1749 - 1831

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
Read our full Open Access policy for images .

Inscription

across center reverse: Painted by James Peale Sen / 1824.

Provenance

Private collection, New Jersey; (Frank S. Schwartz & Son, Philadelphia), by 1987; sold 1 February 1988 to the Jeanne Rowe Mathison Family Trust; gift 1990 to NGA.[1]

[1] The acquisition by NGA was a gift/purchase, with purchase funds donated by Mr. and Mrs. Thomas M. Evans.

Associated Names

Mathison Trust, Jeanne Rowe
Private Collection (NGA Former Owner)
Schwartz & Son, Frank S.

Exhibition History

1988: Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia, 1988-1989, no. 58.

1991: Art for the Nation: Gifts in Honor of the 50th Anniversary of the National Gallery of Art, National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., 1991, unnumbered catalogue, color repro.

2008: Feast for the Eyes: American Masterworks from the National Gallery of Art, Academy Art Museum, Easton, Maryland, 2008, no catalogue.

Bibliography

1987: Schwarz, Robert Devlin. A Gallery Collects Peales. Philadelphia, 1987: 54, pl. 43.

1988: Cikovsky, Nicolai, Jr.Raphaelle Peale Still Lifes. Exh. cat. National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia. Washington, D.C., 1988: 77, pl. 58.

1998: Torchia, Robert Wilson, with Deborah Chotner and Ellen G. Miles. American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part II. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1998: 43-46, color repro.