My Gems
William Harnett1888
National Gallery of Art, Washington DC
Washington, DC, United States
In this somber still life of a cluttered Victorian interior, well-worn yet once-precious objects have been rendered so meticulously that the artist's brushstrokes are barely discernible. Harnett's exquisitely subtle tonal modulations and his ability to differentiate textures make this painting a tour-de-force of artistic illusionism. Such trompe l'oeil art gained popularity in late nineteenth-century America, reflecting a fin-de-siècle preoccupation with mortality and the fleeting rewards of material wealth.
Historically, such a vanitas still life would have incorporated traditional symbolic elements such as a skull, an hourglass, or a snuffed-out candle as unmistakable reminders of death. Harnett's allusion to human life is more subtle: well-thumbed volumes of Dante, Shakespeare, and Tasso; a lamp; the burnt, broken matchsticks; the Meerschaum pipe and spilled ashes; the piccolo and the sheet music are emblematic references to the five senses. These diverse elements, arranged in a highly unstable composition, all seem in danger of imminent collapse.
More information on this painting can be found in the Gallery publication _American Paintings of the Nineteenth Century, Part I_, which is available as a free PDF at <u>https://www.nga.gov/content/dam/ngaweb/research/publications/pdfs/american-paintings-19th-century-part-1.pdf</u>
- Title: My Gems
- Creator: William Michael Harnett
- Date Created: 1888
- Physical Dimensions: overall: 45.7 x 35 cm (18 x 13 3/4 in.) framed: 62.2 x 52.7 x 6.4 cm (24 1/2 x 20 3/4 x 2 1/2 in.)
- Provenance: Probably (Gimbel Brothers, Philadelphia), by 20 January 1920; probably sold 1920 to William J. Hughes [1863-1938], Washington, D.C.;[1] his estate; sold June 1939 to (Downtown Gallery, New York);[2] sold January 1942 to Richard A. Loeb, New York; sold 1956 to (Downtown Gallery, New York);[3] purchased 7 May 1957 by NGA. [1] Letters of 20 January and 14 February 1920 from G.E. Kelley, of Gimbel Brothers, to William J. Hughes (private collection), describe a painting, 18 x 14 inches, that is likely _My Gems_, and offer it for sale, explaining (20 January), "I bought it outright from a man who needed cash and was indeed pleased to find such an example." Hughes' reply has not survived; the specific date of his purchase of _My Gems_ is unknown. Hughes was a lawyer with the office of the solicitor general in Washington, D.C. Like Harnett, he was the son of Irish immigrants to Philadelphia. Although separated in age by fifteen years, the two men became friends and maintained a correspondence even after both moved from Pennsylvania. Prompted by his friendship with the artist, Hughes later amassed a collection of twenty-one late nineteenth-century still-life paintings. See John Davis, "Notes on a Harnett Collector: The 'Mysterious' W.J. Hughes," _Archives of American Art Journal_ 32, no. 2 (1992): 16-26. [2] The Papers of William J. Hughes, Sr., box 9, folder 18, Georgetown University Archives, Washington, D.C., contain correspondence between Edith Halpert of the Downtown Gallery and William J. Hughes, Jr., son of the collector, relating to the sale of most of the Hughes collection to Halpert. Also preserved is an estate inventory of twenty-one paintings, in which the NGA picture is listed and described as no. 3. See also Downtown Gallery Papers, Archives of American Art, microfilm ND/27, frames 100-101. [3] Edith Halpert's letters of 13 May 1957 and 25 March 1961 (in NGA curatorial files) provide provenance information.
- Rights: CC0
- Medium: oil on wood
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