Still Life with Fruit and Vase

Still Life with Fruit and Vase belongs to a select group of still-life paintings from the early 1880s which are characterized by their jewel-like scale. Thayer Tolles Mickel writes, "Still Life with Fruit and Vase of 1881, with its prominent display of glistening grapes, shows the influence of mid-century Düsseldorf masters Johann Peter Hasenclever and Johann Wilhelm Preyer, the latter an accomplished technician and leading still-life artist of the nineteenth-century German School. Certainly he was aware of their work before he went to Europe, since he could have seen Preyer's fruit paintings exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy in 1865 and 1868. . . The motifs of the winding grape tendrils and marble tabletop in Harnett's picture are also characteristic of Düsseldorf still-life paintings. Harnett's interest in the play of varied light on surfaces is evident in the virtuoso handling of the grapes. The treatment of the grapes and other spherical shapes, long considered an indication of technical prowess, provided Harnett with an opportunity to experiment with light, medium, and dark tones. Raised touches of impasto add to the sparkling surface of the fruit." ("Permanent Perishables," William M. Harnett, New York, 1992, pp. 217-218)