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Lot Essay
Still lifes of game were a popular subject for Arthur Fitzwilliam Tait during his first four years in New York between 1850 and 1854. The artist would often hunt in the wetlands of New Jersey or Long Island and bring the wildfowl back to his studio. This practice of painting directly from the subject combined with Tait's attention to detail allowed him to create beautifully realistic trompe l'oeils such as the present work and Redhead and Shoveler (lot 76).
Tait's hanging game pictures were influential works and according to William H. Gerdts and Russell Burke, the artist's "early introduction of hanging-game still life was probably a factor in the subsequent popularity of dead-game still lifes by the Harnett trompe l'oeil school and had particular relevance later to the work of Richard LaBarre Goodwin, who often used very similar grouping for his "cabin-door" still lifes. Tait's feathered game is almost invariably shown against a neutral wall with the shadows carefully designed to give the illusion of three-dimensionality--a trompe l'oeil device used twenty-five years before the rise of Harnett and his school." (W.H. Gerdts and R. Burke, American Still-Life Painting, Washington, D.C., 1971, p. 122)
Tait's hanging game pictures were influential works and according to William H. Gerdts and Russell Burke, the artist's "early introduction of hanging-game still life was probably a factor in the subsequent popularity of dead-game still lifes by the Harnett trompe l'oeil school and had particular relevance later to the work of Richard LaBarre Goodwin, who often used very similar grouping for his "cabin-door" still lifes. Tait's feathered game is almost invariably shown against a neutral wall with the shadows carefully designed to give the illusion of three-dimensionality--a trompe l'oeil device used twenty-five years before the rise of Harnett and his school." (W.H. Gerdts and R. Burke, American Still-Life Painting, Washington, D.C., 1971, p. 122)