GENERAL DESCRIPTION
An eel-fisher's tools of the trade are the subject of this late still life by John Frederick Peto, a close associate of William Michael Harnett, the other great trompe l'oeil ("fool the eye") still life painter of the late 19th century. Peto often chose to represent doors with objects hanging on or tacked to them, such as in this work. he frequently included highly personal symbolic details in the seemingly random assemblages
Excerpt from
William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label text, 2006
NOTES
Created in 1905
Object file reviewed
Publications: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition; Philadelphia, 1955 (cat. #174, p. 113; text, p. 111; not ill.).
John Wilderding, Important Information Inside: The Art of John F. Peto and the Idea of Still-Life Painting in Nineteenth-Century America (Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1983), p. 244, illus. p. 244, fig. 245.
Martha MacLoed, "For a Limited Time: American Paintings on View from a Dallas Collection," DMA gallery talk, August 5, 2015.
UMO pending
Peto – Salt Glazed Beaker, Books, Pipe, Matches, Tobacco Box and Newspaper , 1899
The painting
- Objects one on top of another pushing the entire still life close to the picture plane
- Peto creates a precarious imbalance and a sense that at any moment all will topple over.
- Discards any regard for gravity in pursuit of his interest in color, pattern and rhythmic repetition of geometric and curvilinear forms that enthrall with a disturbing but pleasant sense of confusion
- Stability and instability combined in a single, small canvas
- Set in a domestic library, evoke a sense of comfortable relaxed secure surroundings serve as a synecdoche (sin-ek-doh-key, a literary devise where part is used to represent the whole) for the library, the room implied but not shown, and surly even for their unseen/absent owner.
- Trompe l’oeil paintings are composed of humble, ordinary, discarded work objects: old books, beakers, pistols, bits of paper, keys, books, etc.
- Objects actual size, rarely cut off by edge of canvas as this would be a visual clue that the deception is not real.
- Suggest depth with shadow
- Required great talent, but often discounted as novelty and mere trickery.
About Peto
- 1854 Philadelphia-1907 New Jersey
- Peto’s father was frame gilder in Philadelphia
- Trained at PAFA for one year from 1877-1878
- Gentleman’s “office boards” and trompe l’oeil
- 1876 Peto took studio in Philadelphia, started as photographer, perhaps influenced by his uncle William Bell who was civil war photographer
- Painter and occasional photographer and sculptor
- Did not date works, but themes help determine the date. Most complicated with books, etc. done around 1885 – 1906
- Influenced by Charles Wilson Peale and son Raphaelle Peale and Severn Rosen’s tabletop assemblages and primarily by fellow trompe l’oeil artist Harnett who he greatly admired.
Peto vs. Harnett
- Both from Philadelphia and Peto often compared to William Harnett.
- Peto indebted to Harnett for some subject matter and compositional devices, though his mood is different.
- Peto is more soft edged, and brushwork broad and flat, colors subdued with a dark moodiness.
- Less detailed more abstract and arrangements less formal with a stronger emotional resonance.
- Interested in form, pattern and arrangement of patterns in two-dimensional surface.
- less interest in detail only suggesting type on newspaper
- Less technically skilled, more abstract and more unusual color. Compositions less formal and objects rustier, more worn and less expensive looking.
- More soft, painterly contours, thickly painted surfaces and concern for light effects
Peto – again
- While Harnett stayed in Philadelphia Peto moved to Island Heights NJ and sank into obscurity.
- Studio in his house in Island Heights, shows surrounded by the clutter often depicted in his paintings.
- Sold paintings to tourists and bartered for goods and services
- Died age 54 in 1907
- Family lived in the house until 2002
- Forgotten to obscurity during his lifetime and only rediscovered when art historian Alfred Frankenstein became curious about stylistic differences in some of Harnett’s works. He identified about 20 works actually by Peto (based on pigment choice and style).
---------------------
A parallel current to French Impressionism and the Munich style in the last quarter of the 19th century was the still-life tradition which culminated in the work of Harnett. This tradition of realism was continued in the work of John Frederick Peto, who, like Harnett, created canvases depicting objects that have the quality of tactile reality and are often referred to as trompe l'oeil, or fool-the-eye, painting.
The salient aspects of Peto's style include: random arrangement of objects; use of worn-out or discarded articles; creation of surface
effects; rendering of objects in great detail; and use of soft edges. Many of Peto's paintings have an elegiac quality in their random and cluttered placement of these tattered and worn objects. Fish House Door of 1905 illustrates Peto's trompe l'oeil style.
Peto received little critical acclaim in his lifetime and was largely forgotten after his death. Many of his paintings were given the forged signature of Harnett, creating questions of authenticity which were further complicated by Peto's adaptation of subjects and compositions of Harnett. Also, both artists sold their works from 1880 to 1888 through the same gallery in Philadelphia. In general, Peto's work lacks the strength of composition and the differentiation of textures found in the canvases of Harnett. Peto used brighter colors (such as the green in the DMA painting) and a softer rendering of forms, without Harnett's crisp edges.
Excerpt from Anne Bromberg, "Description of Selected Paintings in the Collection," DMA Education files, 1987.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Peto, John Frederick (American, 1854-1907)
Cultures
Geography
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
n.d.: Mrs. George W. (Helen Peto) Smiley (1893-1978), Island Heights, New Jersey, daughter of the artist, by descent [1]
From 1953: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Art Association Purchase [2]
[1] See the provenance record dated May 18, 1988, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records object file.
[2] The Dallas Art Association is the predecessor to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name was abandoned in 1970. Works from this collection were transferred to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.
AUDIO ASSETS
VIDEO ASSETS
IMAGE ASSETS
WEB RESOURCES
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts~View another version of a fish house door by John Frederick Peto at PAFA.
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FUN FACTS
TEACHING IDEAS
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Apply to objects where number equals 1953.17
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General Description
An eel-fisher's tools of the trade are the subject of this late still life by John Frederick Peto, a close associate of William Michael Harnett, the other great trompe l'oeil ("fool the eye") still life painter of the late 19th century. Peto often chose to represent doors with objects hanging on or tacked to them, such as in this work. he frequently included highly personal symbolic details in the seemingly random assemblages
Excerpt from
William Keyse Rudolph, DMA label text, 2006
Fun Facts
Archival Resources
Web Resources
- Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts~View another version of a fish house door by John Frederick Peto at PAFA.
Notes
Created in 1905
Object file reviewed
Publications: The Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, The One Hundred and Fiftieth Anniversary Exhibition; Philadelphia, 1955 (cat. #174, p. 113; text, p. 111; not ill.).
John Wilderding, Important Information Inside: The Art of John F. Peto and the Idea of Still-Life Painting in Nineteenth-Century America (Washington, National Gallery of Art, 1983), p. 244, illus. p. 244, fig. 245.
Martha MacLoed, "For a Limited Time: American Paintings on View from a Dallas Collection," DMA gallery talk, August 5, 2015.
UMO pending
Peto – Salt Glazed Beaker, Books, Pipe, Matches, Tobacco Box and Newspaper , 1899
The painting
- Objects one on top of another pushing the entire still life close to the picture plane
- Peto creates a precarious imbalance and a sense that at any moment all will topple over.
- Discards any regard for gravity in pursuit of his interest in color, pattern and rhythmic repetition of geometric and curvilinear forms that enthrall with a disturbing but pleasant sense of confusion
- Stability and instability combined in a single, small canvas
- Set in a domestic library, evoke a sense of comfortable relaxed secure surroundings serve as a synecdoche (sin-ek-doh-key, a literary devise where part is used to represent the whole) for the library, the room implied but not shown, and surly even for their unseen/absent owner.
- Trompe l’oeil paintings are composed of humble, ordinary, discarded work objects: old books, beakers, pistols, bits of paper, keys, books, etc.
- Objects actual size, rarely cut off by edge of canvas as this would be a visual clue that the deception is not real.
- Suggest depth with shadow
- Required great talent, but often discounted as novelty and mere trickery.
About Peto
- 1854 Philadelphia-1907 New Jersey
- Peto’s father was frame gilder in Philadelphia
- Trained at PAFA for one year from 1877-1878
- Gentleman’s “office boards” and trompe l’oeil
- 1876 Peto took studio in Philadelphia, started as photographer, perhaps influenced by his uncle William Bell who was civil war photographer
- Painter and occasional photographer and sculptor
- Did not date works, but themes help determine the date. Most complicated with books, etc. done around 1885 – 1906
- Influenced by Charles Wilson Peale and son Raphaelle Peale and Severn Rosen’s tabletop assemblages and primarily by fellow trompe l’oeil artist Harnett who he greatly admired.
Peto vs. Harnett
- Both from Philadelphia and Peto often compared to William Harnett.
- Peto indebted to Harnett for some subject matter and compositional devices, though his mood is different.
- Peto is more soft edged, and brushwork broad and flat, colors subdued with a dark moodiness.
- Less detailed more abstract and arrangements less formal with a stronger emotional resonance.
- Interested in form, pattern and arrangement of patterns in two-dimensional surface.
- less interest in detail only suggesting type on newspaper
- Less technically skilled, more abstract and more unusual color. Compositions less formal and objects rustier, more worn and less expensive looking.
- More soft, painterly contours, thickly painted surfaces and concern for light effects
Peto – again
- While Harnett stayed in Philadelphia Peto moved to Island Heights NJ and sank into obscurity.
- Studio in his house in Island Heights, shows surrounded by the clutter often depicted in his paintings.
- Sold paintings to tourists and bartered for goods and services
- Died age 54 in 1907
- Family lived in the house until 2002
- Forgotten to obscurity during his lifetime and only rediscovered when art historian Alfred Frankenstein became curious about stylistic differences in some of Harnett’s works. He identified about 20 works actually by Peto (based on pigment choice and style).
---------------------
A parallel current to French Impressionism and the Munich style in the last quarter of the 19th century was the still-life tradition which culminated in the work of Harnett. This tradition of realism was continued in the work of John Frederick Peto, who, like Harnett, created canvases depicting objects that have the quality of tactile reality and are often referred to as trompe l'oeil, or fool-the-eye, painting.
The salient aspects of Peto's style include: random arrangement of objects; use of worn-out or discarded articles; creation of surface
effects; rendering of objects in great detail; and use of soft edges. Many of Peto's paintings have an elegiac quality in their random and cluttered placement of these tattered and worn objects. Fish House Door of 1905 illustrates Peto's trompe l'oeil style.
Peto received little critical acclaim in his lifetime and was largely forgotten after his death. Many of his paintings were given the forged signature of Harnett, creating questions of authenticity which were further complicated by Peto's adaptation of subjects and compositions of Harnett. Also, both artists sold their works from 1880 to 1888 through the same gallery in Philadelphia. In general, Peto's work lacks the strength of composition and the differentiation of textures found in the canvases of Harnett. Peto used brighter colors (such as the green in the DMA painting) and a softer rendering of forms, without Harnett's crisp edges.
Excerpt from Anne Bromberg, "Description of Selected Paintings in the Collection," DMA Education files, 1987.
Catalogue essays
Artist/designers
Peto, John Frederick (American, 1854-1907)
Cultures
Geography
Process/materials
Historical periods
Individuals
Subject terms
RELATED OBJECTS
PROVENANCE
n.d.: Mrs. George W. (Helen Peto) Smiley (1893-1978), Island Heights, New Jersey, daughter of the artist, by descent [1]
From 1953: Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, Dallas Art Association Purchase [2]
[1] See the provenance record dated May 18, 1988, copy in Dallas Museum of Art Collections Records object file.
[2] The Dallas Art Association is the predecessor to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name was abandoned in 1970. Works from this collection were transferred to the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts. The name of the Dallas Museum of Fine Arts, founded in 1933, changed to the Dallas Museum of Art in 1983.
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