Still Life with Cake
1818
Medium
Oil on wood
Dimensions
10 3/4 x 15 1/4 in. (27.3 x 38.7 cm)
Classification
Painting
Culture
American
Department
The American Wing
Museum
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY
Credit
Maria DeWitt Jesup Fund, 1959
Accession Number
59.166
Tags
Art Historical Context
Raphaelle Peale's *Still Life with Cake*1818), an oil on wood panel measuring just 10¾ x 15¼ inches, captures the quiet elegance of everyday abundance in early 19th-century America. As one of America's first professional still-life painters from the illustrious Peale family, Raphaelle specialized in intimate tabletop scenes like this one, featuring cakes, fruit, grapes, and wine The small-scale wood support allowed for meticulous brushwork, lending the work a luminous, almost tangible realism that invites viewers to reach out and touch the depicted delicacies. Peale's trompe l'oeil technique—...
About the Artist
Raphaelle Peale · 1774–1825
Comment on works: portrait; still-life; marine; miniature