Lot 93: Still Life

Rubens Peale (1784-1865)
Still Life
signed, dated and inscribed '1857/copied by Rubens Peale/aged 72/by from the original by/James Peale' (on the reverse)
oil on canvas
19¼ x 27¼ in. (48.9 x 69.2 cm.)

Greensburg, Pennsylvania, Penn's Promise: Still Life Painting in Pennsylvania, 1795-1930 , May 29-July 31, 1988, no. 87.

Inspired by his daughter, Mary Jane Peale, Rubens Peale turned to still life painting late in life and it is not surprising that he shared the artistic affinity and talent of his father Charles, uncle James and his brothers Raphaelle and Rembrandt. Indeed, Rubens often looked to their works for inspiration and copied them as with Still Life . "Ruben's art was separated by twenty-five years or more years from its sources, but he perpetuated the most orthodox aspects of the still-life tradition established by Raphaelle and James earlier in the century... At his farm near the headwaters of the Schuylkill River, Rubens painted in almost complete geographic and ideological isolation from the aesthetic concerns of the mid-nineteenth century. His paintings reveal his retrospective orientation, fashioned by equal measures of personal conservatism and the momentum of his family's influence." (L.B. Miller, ed., The Peale Family: Creation of a Legacy, 1770-1870 , New York, 1996, p. 184)