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Robert Seldon Duncanson

Fruit Still Life, c. 1849

Not on View

Medium

oil on canvas

Dimensions

overall: 34.29 × 48.26 cm (13 1/2 × 19 in.)

framed: 50.8 × 66.04 cm (20 × 26 in.)

Credit Line

Corcoran Collection (Museum Purchase through a gift from the Reserve for Purchase of Works of Art)

Accession Number

2014.136.106

Artists / Makers

Robert Seldon Duncanson (painter) American, 1821 - 1872

Image Use

This image is in the public domain.
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Provenance

Dr. George C. Mendenhall, Cincinnati, after 1877; to his daughter-in-law, Mrs. Charles Mendenhall; to her daughter, Mrs. George P. Stimson; to her niece, Mrs. W.E. Stilwell, Jr.;[1] (Kennedy Galleries, New York), by 1962; purchased 30 October 1968 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art.

[1] The Corcoran's accession record sheet, in NGA curatorial files, records that Dr. Mendenhall "received [the painting] as bill from a patient." This was meant to be recorded as "received [the painting] from a patient in payment of a bill." See: "Important American Still Life and Portrait Paintings," The Kennedy Quarterly 3, no. 3 (December 1962): 117. Dr. Mendenhall was a Cincinnati physician.

Associated Names

Corcoran Gallery of Art
Kennedy Galleries
Mendenhall, Charles Mrs.
Mendenhall, George C., Dr.
Stilwell, Jr., Mrs. W. E.
Stimson, George P. Mrs.

Exhibition History

1955: Rediscoveries in American Painting, Cincinnati Museum of Art, 1955, no. 25.

1972: 19th Century Afro-American Artists: Duncanson & Bannister, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, 13 January - 13 February 1972, unnumbered checklist.

1972: Robert S. Duncanson: A Centennial Exhibition, Cincinnati Art Museum, 16 March - 30 April 1972, no. 5, repro.

1976: Selections of Nineteenth-Century Afro-American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 19 June - 1 August 1976, no. 10, repro.

1978: The Object as Subject: American Still Lifes from the Corcoran Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 10 December 1978 - 25 March 1979, no catalogue.

1984: Duncanson: A British-American Connection, Museum of Art, North Carolina Central University, Durham, 3 June - 1 July 1984, no. 4, repro.

1985: Hidden Heritage: Afro-American Art, 1800-1950, Bellevue Art Museum, Bellevue, Washington; The Bronx Museum of the Arts; California Afro-American Museum, Los Angeles; Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; San Antonio Museum of Art; Toledo Museum of Art; Baltimore Museum of Art; Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Oklahoma Museum of Art, Oklahoma City, 1985-1988, no. 11, repro.

1993: The Century Club Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 July - 13 September 1993, unpublished checklist.

1995: Lifting the Veil: The Emergence of the African-American Artist, The Taft Museum, Cincinnati; The Cincinnati Art Museum; The Washington University Gallery of Art, St. Louis; Amon Carter Museum, Fort Worth; Clark Atlanta University Art Gallery, Atlanta; Hammonds House Galleries, Atlanta, 1995-1996.

1999: Celebrating the Legacy: African American Art from the Collection, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 30 July - 22 September 1999, unpublished checklist.

2002: Celebrating the Legacy II: African American Art at the Corcoran, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 10 January - 25 February 2002, unpublished checklist.

2005: Encouraging American Genius: Master Paintings from the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston; Parrish Art Museum, Southampton; Mint Museum of Art, Charlotte; John and Mable Ringling Museum of Art, Sarasota, 2005-2007, checklist no. 19 (Washington only).

2013: American Journeys: Visions of Place, Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington, 21 September 2013 - 28 September 2014, unpublished checklist.

Bibliography

1985: Harrington, Lynda Roscoe. Sharing Traditions: Five Black Artists in Nineteenth-Century America. Exh. cat. National Museum of American Art, Washington, DC, 1985: 52-54, fig. 10.

2011: Cash, Sarah, ed. Corcoran Gallery of Art: American Paintings to 1945. Washington, 2011: 294, repro.

2015: Klein, Shana. "Cultivating Fruit and Equality: The Still-Life Paintings of Robert Duncanson." American Art 29, no. 2 (Summer 2015): 69-70, color fig. 4.