Still Life of Fruit, Honeycomb and Knives

Artist Robert Spear Dunning American, 1829–1905

Date1867

MediumOil on canvas

Dimensions26 × 36 1/2 in. (66 × 92.7 cm)
Frame: 37 1/2 × 48 × 4 3/4 in. (95.3 × 121.9 × 12.1 cm)

ClassificationsPaintings

Credit LineGift of Ann and Jim Goodnight

Object number2018.9.1

On View

On view

Label TextThough these fruits were grown across different geographic regions, Dunning brings them together at their peak of ripeness. In mid-nineteenth-century America, bountiful depictions of fruit were often viewed by white patrons as celebrations of divine favor on the colonized Americas.

While this painting symbolizes the vastness and interconnection of the American empire and its advances in transport and horticultural technology, it obscures the inequities embedded in the supply chains for fruit, often harvested across the hemisphere by immigrants and newly emanciapted African Americans. Such paintings were typically displayed in the dining rooms of middle- and upper-class houses, their message of gracious plenty complementing the family’s table.
[L. Applebaum, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," 2022]Provenance**Created United States, 1867; collection of the artist. Arthur Sherman Phillips (1865–1941), Fall River, MA; by descent to private collection; [Hirschl & Adler Galleries, New York, 2016]; sold to NCMA, 2018.
Exhibition HistoryRaleigh, NC, North Carolina Museum of Art, "The People's Collection, Reimagined," October 7, 2022–present. Object Rights Statement

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