James Peale
Still Life with Bowl of Peaches and Grapes
1818-1835
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James Peale
Still Life with Bowl of Peaches and Grapes
1818-1835
Physical Qualities
Oil on canvas, Sight: 19 1/4 × 24 1/2 in. (48.9 × 62.2 cm.)
Framed: 29 3/8 × 34 1/2 × 4 1/2 in. (74.6 × 87.6 × 11.4 cm.)
Credit Line
Gift of William Bose Marye, Baltimore
Object Number
1948.14
James Peale, eight years younger than American master Charles Willson Peale, joined his brother as a frame-maker after Charles returned in 1769 from studies in London with Benjamin West. Within a few years, James was painting as well, creating still lifes inspired by Dutch art. Unlike Charles, James never traveled abroad, but he did have access to Dutch paintings in Philadelphia. His work was regularly shown in the annual exhibitions of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. By 1823, at least one still life by James was in a Baltimore collection and was featured in the Second Annual Exhibition of the Peale Museum in Baltimore. Although still life was considered a lowly form of art in the hierarchy of academic painting, such pictures continued to find patrons throughout the 19th century. Today, works such as Still Life with Bowl of Peaches and Grapes are counted among the finest American pictures created during the Federal period.
Baltimore Museum of Art by gift, 1948; William Bose Marye (1886–1979), Baltimore, MD by descent; William Nelson (1841-1929) and Elizabeth Mary Bose Gittings Marye (1853-1928), Baltimore, MD
Peale Museum, Baltimore, "Rendezvous for Taste," Feb. 24-Apr. 22, 1956, P. 29, no. 98 (as by Rubens Peale).
Wildenstein Gallery, New York, "The Object as Subject, Still Life Painting from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century," Apr. 4-May 3, 1975, n.p., no. 51.
United States Information Agency, Washington, D.C., "200 Years of American Painting: 1776-1976", June 30-Dec. 12, 1976 (organized by BMA and circulated to Germany, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Poland)
Baltimore Museum of Art, Sona Johnston, "The Art of Still Life from The Baltimore Museum of Art;" circulated to The Academy Art Museum, August 3 - October 6, 2007
Wildenstein Gallery, New York, "The Object as Subject, Still Life Painting from the Seventeenth to the Twentieth Century," Apr. 4-May 3, 1975, n.p., no. 51.
United States Information Agency, Washington, D.C., "200 Years of American Painting: 1776-1976", June 30-Dec. 12, 1976 (organized by BMA and circulated to Germany, Yugoslavia, Italy, and Poland)
Baltimore Museum of Art, Sona Johnston, "The Art of Still Life from The Baltimore Museum of Art;" circulated to The Academy Art Museum, August 3 - October 6, 2007
Sona K. Johnston, "American Painting 1750-1900 from the Collection of The Baltimore Museum of Art," 1983, pp. 117-118, ill. p. 118.
On View at the BMA
