Magnolias on a Wooden Table

Martin Johnson Heade's still life series of magnolia blossoms has been widely acknowledged as the supreme achievement of the artist's years in St. Augustine, Florida. At once straightforward and decorative still lifes, the paintings are also beguiling and complex works. The small series has merited a position among the finest nineteenth-century American still lifes.

Dr. Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. has noted: "Among the most magnificent of Heade's works are the paintings representing the Magnolia grandiflora, which grows wild throughout the south. These pictures, more than any others, represent the painter's new feelings of comfort and well-being, his acceptance by Flagler and the St. Augustine establishment, and his delight in the luxuriant resort culture that he now inhabited. The magnolia blossom, with its great size--up to ten inches across--its creamy white petals, dark, glossy green leaves, and superb fragrance, was a perfect symbol of both the sensual allure of the tropics and Heade's satisfaction with his new life." (The Life and Work of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné, New Haven, Connecticut, 2000, p. 159)
Other scholars have noted that "these works, executed in an anachronistic, highly realistic style near the end of the nineteenth century, are increasingly admired not only for their lush beauty and sensuousness but also for their mysterious, darker qualities." (J.L. Comey, Martin Johnson Heade, Boston, Massachusetts, 1999, p. 126)

Many scholarly interpretations of the magnolia series have often noted a sexual overtone to the paintings, often linking it to the velvet cloth upon which the languid and human-like flower reclines. In this picture, the cloth appears as a drawn curtain, carefully featured in the background of the composition. Cinched in the center, as if echoing a female figure, the cloth lingers subtly in the background, giving center stage to the three magnificent magnolia blossoms. The blossoms glow with brilliant light. Their silky petals are reflected in the high-gloss surface of the wooden table, and are rendered with astonishing precision equal to that of any other magnolia picture.

Until the discovery of Magnolias on a Wooden Table, it was believed that Heade's magnolia pictures only featured the fragrant flowers reclining on velvet cloth or poised in tumblers set on a velvet surface. Magnolias on a Wooden Table may help provide additional insight into the alluring group of pictures. The choice of a shiny wooden table may indicate a relationship with his still lifes of Cherokee roses from the same period in the artist's career, which feature a reflective wooden surface. Heade depicted a wide variety of surfaces and textures throughout his career, including velvet, paisley, brocade, and damask. Indeed, he often featured wooden surfaces in his still lifes, which would have provided him with yet another opportunity for pictorial experimentation.

In a letter dated February 3, 2000, Dr. Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr. notes of Magnolias on a Wooden Table: "This is a beautiful painting with a composition typical of Heade's late work at its best; however, it is unique as far as I know, in depicting the magnolias on a shiny wooden table, rather than the typical colored velvet or plush material. The open flower at the right is the same blossom that Heade depicted in one of his oil sketches at the St. Augustine Historical Society (number 558 in my monograph) and the flower appears again in several of the most important magnolia compositions, including [those in the collection of The Art Institute of Chicago, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC, and the R.W. Norton Art Gallery, Shreveport, Louisiana] This is an interesting and important discovery in terms of Heade's oeuvre."

A letter from Dr. Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr., discussing the work, accompanies the lot.

This work will be included in Theodore E. Stebbins, Jr.'s forthcoming third edition of his catalogue raisonné of Heade's work.