Lot 13: Mary Jane Peale (1826-1902)

Still Life with Fruit, 1862 signed, inscribed and dated “MJ Peale/from Nature/1862” (on reverse, prior to lining) oil on canvas

12 7/8 x 20 3/4 in. (32.6 x 51.5 cm)

Newhouse Galleries, Inc., New York
Mr. and Mrs. Robert F. Black, Jr., Southern Pines, North Carolina
Private Collection

Exhibited
Philadelphia, The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts
Raleigh, North Carolina, The North Carolina Museum of Art, North Carolina Collects, October 10-29, 1967, no. 34

Literature
Archives of The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, Register of Works Received for Exhibition of 1882, July 5, 1882
“The Female Peales: Their Art and Its Traditions,” The American Collector 15, August 1946
Bruce Weber, American Paintings IX, Berry-Hill Galleries, New York, 2001, pp. 20-21

A photograph of the inscription on the original canvas, prior to lining, accompanies the work. As per Lance Humphries, this painting will be included in the Peale Paintings Project of the Maryland Historical Society. Recognized only recently as a major contributor to the Peale family tradition of still-life painting, Mary Jane Peale lived and worked in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, where her father, Rubens Peale, had settled in 1841. Still Life with Fruit of 1862 is typical of Mary Jane’s style, which closely resembles that of her great-uncle, James Peale. The carefully arranged fruit and leaves are brilliantly illuminated by raking light, in dramatic contrast to the pools of shadow that add depth and mystery to the space. Some of the fruit is blemished; some of the leaves, autumnal, intimating – in classic Dutch still- life fashion – time’s seasonal cycle.