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Last Items added: 2015.4 Haberle, One Dollar Bill, and 2015.5 Peto, Old Time Letter Rack

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Harvest of Cherries

Robert Spear Dunning

Date: 1866

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1999.48

Text Entries: New York Herald (March 6, 1866): 10, col. 6. New York Times (March 12, 1866): 6, col.3. The Magazine Antiques 126:4 (October 1984): 797. Ill. p. 797 (color). William Doyle Galleries, New York (Sale: Important 19th and 20th Century American Painting and Sculpture, October 24, 1984): 36. Ill. no. 36. American Paintings III 1985. New York: Berry-Hill Galleries, Inc., 1985. Ill. p. 40 (color). Ferber, Linda S. and William H. Gerdts. The New Path: Ruskin and the American Pre-Raphaelites. (exh. cat., The Brooklyn Museum). Brooklyn, New York: The Brooklyn Museum, 1985. Text p. 252; ill. no. 97, p. 253 (black & white). Atkinson, D. Scott et al. A Proud Heritage: Two Centuries of American Art. Edited by Terry A. Neff. (exh. cat., Terra Museum of American Art). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 1987. Pl. T-29, p. 138 (color). Southgate, M. Therese. "The Cover." The Journal of the American Medical Association 264:6 (August 8, 1990): 685. Text p. 685; ill. cover (color). Brownlee, Peter John. Manifest Destiny / Manifest Responsibility: Environmentalism and the Art of the American Landscape. (exh. cat., Loyola University Museum of Art, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for American Art and Loyola University Museum of Art, 2008. Text p. 35 (checklist). Barter, Judith A., ed. Art and Appetite: American Painting, Culture, and Cuisine. (exh. cat. Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois). Chicago: Art Institute of Chicago, 2013. Text, pp. 98–99, 123, 170, 223; ill. pp. 70 (color) (detail), 98 (color). Bourguignon, Katherine M., and Peter John Brownlee, eds. Conversations with the Collection: A Terra Foundation Collection Handbook. Chicago: Terra Foundation for American Art, 2018. Text p. 93; ill. p. 93 (color).

Still Life with Fruit

Robert Spear Dunning

Date: 1868

Credit Line: Terra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Collection

Object number: 1999.49

Text Entries: (modified anniversary publication entry) At the age of five, Robert Dunning moved with his family to Fall River, Massachusetts-a center for maritime activity and mercantile exchange in the nineteenth century. Leaving only briefly to pursue artistic training in New York City, Dunning launched his career as a portraitist in 1852. By 1865 he turned his attention to still-life painting, five years later helping to found the Fall River Evening Drawing School. For nearly sixty years, the Massachusetts town hosted a distinctive circle of painters. Defined by their interest in still life and a conservative approach to illusionist depiction, many of the notable artists of the Fall River School studied with Dunning, a master of still life. As a celebration of abundance, Still Life with Fruit characterizes Dunning's early style. Dark and rich in tone, it features a sumptuous display of ripe fruit filling a silver dish and spilling out of a cut-glass bowl. The assortment of fruit displays his skill at visual illusion, from the shining skin of the polished apples to the rugged rind of the muskmelon to the gleaming grapes bursting with juice. Here the bananas, a luxury item that had to be shipped over a great distance to the Fall River port, suggest an exotic treat. Typical of Dunning are the decorative objects; the patterned cloths, transparent glass, glinting silver, and highly polished wooden tabletop gave Dunning an opportunity to showcase his bravura command of light playing upon a variety of surfaces.