Still Life with the Toledo Blade

Expand

IIIFView PDF

Still Life with the Toledo Blade

Artist William Michael Harnett (American (born Ireland), 1848-1892)

Date1886

DimensionsPainting: 22 1/8 × 26 1/4 in. (56.2 × 66.7 cm)
Frame: 28 × 32 × 2 1/2 in. (71.1 × 81.3 × 6.4 cm)

Mediumoil on canvas

ClassificationPaintings

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy Rike

Object number

1962.2

Not on View

Label TextThe newspaper seems to project out of this painting, and the matches seem three-dimensional enough to pick up off the table. With an uncanny sense of illusion, William Harnett established a type of “fool-the-eye” (tromp l’oeil) still life painting that proved incredibly popular with his middleclass clientele. He painted Still Life with the Toledo Blade for Isaac N. Reed, a Toledo druggist whose business often took him to New York where Harnett worked. The books, pipe, candle, violin, and a folded newspaper are favorite props in Harnett’s works. The newspaper is the September 17, 1886 issue of the Toledo Blade; later renamed The Blade, it remains Toledo’s daily paper.Published ReferencesFrankenstein, A., After the Hunt, Berkeley, 1953, pp. 7, 9, 73, 171, no. 105, repr. pl 66.

"Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, July-September, 1962," The Art Quarterly, vol. XXV, no. 4, Winter 1962, p. 407, repr. p. 402.

"In the Museums," Antiques, vol. 83, no. 2, February 1963, p. 218, repr.

"Treasures for Toledo," Toledo Museum of Art Museum News, New Series, vol. 7, no. 4, Winter 1964, repr. p. 105.

Wittmann, Otto, "Treasures at Toledo, Ohio," Apollo, LXXXI, no. 35, January 1965, pp. 28-35, repr. p. 35.

Toledo Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collections, Toledo, 1966, repr.

A Guide to the Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, 1966, repr.

Young, Mahonri Sharp, "From Howling Wilderness to Queensborough Bridge," Apollo, vol. 86, no. 70, Dec. 1967, p. 500, repr. (b&w) fig. 12, p. 501.

Ryan, Michael, "This Museum is for People," The Wonderful World of Ohio, vol. 33, no. 2, Feb. 1969, repr. (col.) p. 31.

Johnson, Charlotte Buel, Contemporary Art: Exploring Its Roots and Development, Worchester, 1973, p. 54, repr. p. 55.

Greenhill, Eleanor S., Dictionary of Art, New York, 1974, repr. plate 30.

The Toledo Museum of Art: A Guide to the Collections, Toledo, 1976, repr. p. 78.

The Toledo Museum of Art, The Toledo Museum of Art, American Paintings, Toledo, 1979, p. 57, pl. 56.

Strickler, Susan E., "American Paintings at the Toledo Museum of Art," Antiques, vol. 116, no. 5, Nov. 1979, p. 1115, repr. (col.) pl. XI.

Bolger, Doreen, ed., et al, William M. Harnett, Fort Worth, 1992, pp. 75, 228-229, 231, no. 33, fig. 100.

Koch-Hillebrecht, Manfred, Museen in den USA: Gamalde, Munich, 1992, p. 233, repr. (col.).

The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Treasures Toledo, 1995, p. 138, repr. (col.).

Apgar, Garry, et al., The Newspaper in Art, Spokane, 1996, p. 78, nos. 3, 172, fig. 185, (col.).

Speck, William D., Toledo: a History in Architecture 1835-1890, Chicago, 2001, p. 75, repr.

Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Museum of Art Masterworks, Toledo, 2009, p. 268, repr. (col.).

Exhibition HistoryToledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo Art Loan 1898 Exhibition, 1951, (lent by Harry B. Kirtland).

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Treasures for Toledo, Dec. 1964- Jan. 1965.

Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art, Heritage and Horizon: American Painting 1776-1976, 1976, no. 23, repr.

New York, IBM Gallery of Science and Art, American Paintings from the Toledo Museum of Art, 1986, repr. (col.).

Minneapolis, Minneapolis Institute of Arts; Saint Louis, Saint Louis Art Museum; Toledo, The Toledo Museum of Art; Kansas City, Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art; Pittsburgh, Carnegie Museum of Art, Made in America: Ten Centuries of American Art, 1995-1996, p. 74, repr. (col.).