Lot 57: JOHN FREDERICK PETO (1854-1907) The Gray Jug signed ‘JF.Peto’ (upper lef

JOHN FREDERICK PETO (1854-1907) The Gray Jug signed ‘JF.Peto’ (upper left) oil on panel 3 5/8 x 5 1/8in

Provenance The Downtown Gallery, New York. Morris Kantor, New York, by 1953. Sale, Sotheby’s, New York, April 17, 1975, lot 5. Private collection, probably acquired from the above. By descent to the present owner. Literature A. Frankenstein, After the Hunt, Berkeley, California, 1975, pp. 17, 20, no. 18, p. 184, no. 7. Accompanying this lot is a copy of a letter from Dr. Alfred Frankenstein, dated 1974, discussing the painting. The present lot bears an erroneous William M. Harnett (1848-1892) signature, incised into the paint layer, at lower right. This misattribution reflects a troubled history of paintings by John Frederick Peto being falsely ascribed to the artist William Harnett after their mutual deaths. Peto was a student and admirer of Harnett and produced still life paintings in a parallel style. As Harnett rose to fame after his death, public interest in the artist’s works grew exponentially. Along with numerous museums and institutions across the country adding his paintings to their collections, important private collectors sought out Harnett’s works as well, including President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Norman Rockefeller. Following the artist’s first solo exhibition, an acclaimed success held by the Downtown Gallery in New York, in 1939, the market was flooded with paintings attributed to Harnett. This exposure created high demand for Harnett’s paintings and as a result forgers reattributed many of Peto’s most successful paintings to the name of William Harnett. Due in large part to the scholarship of Alfred Frankenstein during the period that followed in the 1940s, many of these falsely attributed works have been reassigned to Peto, the present work included. The Gray Jug is recorded in Frankenstein’s book After the Hunt, among a list of works he had reassigned to Peto by 1953.