Lot 9: James Peale (1749-1831)

Fruits of Autumn oil on panel 151/2 x 22 in. (39.3 x 55.9 cm.) PROVENANCE Juliana Force, New York, circa 1920s. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, March, 1932. Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney, New York, circa 1940s. By descent in the family to the present owner. EXHIBITION New York, Whitney Museum of American Art, Exhibition of Provincial Painting of the 19th Century, Audubon Prints, Colored Lithographs, Thomas Nast Cartoons Selected from the Permanent Collection of the Whitney Museum, March 3-30, 1932 (This exhibition also traveled to East Hampton, New York, Guild Hall Museum) Buffalo, New York, Albright Knox Art Gallery, Centennial Exhibition of American Folk Art, July 1-August 1, 1932 San Francisco, California, M.H. de Young Museum, American Painting, 1935 Houston, Texas, Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, The Private Eye: Selected Works from the Collections of Friends of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, June 9-August 13, 1989 NOTES James Peale, younger brother of Charles Willson Peale, was born in Chestertown, Maryland, in 1749. As a child, he lived with his brother and learned the trade of a saddler. Under the influence of his brother, he gave up his trade to become a painter. From a letter by Charles Willson Peale dated April 20, 1771, he mentions James "copies well and has painted a little from the life." (Charles Coleman Sellers, James Peale: A Light in Shadow, from Four Generations of Commissions, Baltimore, Maryland, 1975, p.29) During the Revolutionary War, Peale served as an officer in the Continental Army under George Washington. After resigning from the army, it is believed he followed the army to Yorktown as a volunteer, bringing back studies of the scene which appear in some of his paintings. Peale painted two portraits of his leader, one is owned by the City of Philadelphia and hangs in the National Portrait Gallery at Independence Hall and the other is owned by the New York Historical Society. Color interested both Peale brothers, with James producing technical and scientific papers on the subject. " Columbian Magazine, 1789 (pp.189-191) contains carefully studied directions for 'An Improved Process for making Prussian Blue; by Mr. J.P. of Philadelphia.' Twenty years later he is still at it, mulling the problem of a madder lake which would be proof against fading. ( James Peale: A Light in Shadow, from Four Generations of Commissions, p.32) James Peale's small, but wide-ranging oeuvre included still lifes, portraits, landscapes, historical paintings and miniatures, and from 1818 he concentrated on landscapes and still lifes. Charles Coleman Sellers writes of his still life paintings, "His fruit pieces, lush evocations of the earth's abundance, won a popularity denied to Raphaelle Peale's stark, intense compositions." ( James Peale: A Light in Shadow, from Four Generations of Commissions, p.33) Most of his lifetime was spent in Philadelphia, though he worked and resided for a time in the South. He was married and had six children, three of them painters. Peale died in Philadelphia on May 24, 1831.