Still Life with the Toledo Blade

The newspaper seems to project out of this painting, and the matches seem three-dimensional enough to pick up off the table. With an uncanny sense of illusion, William Harnett established a type of “fool-the-eye” (tromp l’oeil) still life painting that proved incredibly popular with his middleclass clientele.

He painted Still Life with the Toledo Blade for Isaac N. Reed, a Toledo druggist whose business often took him to New York where Harnett worked. The books, pipe, candle, violin, and a folded newspaper are favorite props in Harnett’s works. The newspaper is the September 17, 1886 issue of the Toledo Blade; later renamed The Blade, it remains Toledo’s daily paper.