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(American, 1819–1904)

Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell

1870
Oil on canvas
Image: 21 x 17 in. (53.3 x 43.2 cm)
Frame: 33 1/8 x 29 x 4 in. (84.1 x 73.7 x 10.2 cm)
Credit LineTerra Foundation for American Art, Daniel J. Terra Art Acquisition Endowment Fund
Object number1999.7
SignedLower right: M.J. Heade 1870
Interpretation
Martin Johnson Heade’s Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell presents an assortment of luxury objects arranged with studied casualness on the surface of a small round table draped with a decorative damask fabric. A profusion of rich, contrasting patterns and surfaces threatens to overwhelm the image. On the left below a sweep of lace, a swathe of gold-fringed velvet partly conceals a fancy box, perhaps a lady’s jewelry container; behind it is the buttoned, scalloped sleeve of a fashionable woman’s glove. On the right, a string of pearls ending in a cross spills from an ornate golden pedestal dish. A folded ivory fan and its fringed tassel perch perilously close to the table’s front edge. Dominating all is a curving white nautilus shell delicately supported on an elaborate white stand terminating in three shell forms. The nautilus serves as a vase for a luxuriant spray of ripening apple blossoms and foliage, from which a bud and a petal have separately dropped to the table below. Complementing the pink tones of the blossoms is the rich red of the diamond-patterned backdrop, probably a wallpaper.

Having worked as a portraitist and landscape painter, Heade turned in about 1860 to still life, in which he worked prolifically to the end of his life. This shift followed his arrival in New York. In the decades following the Civil War the city was not only the undisputed center of American art-life but also a national show-place for the industrializing North’s explosive economic growth, realized in displays of unprecedented material abundance and luxury. Beginning in 1869, Heade painted numerous table-top arrangements of flowers, often in precious or fragile containers and accompanied by rich fabrics and other exquisite decorative objects. Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell is the most complex and ambitious of these works. Heade’s interest in fine, rare, and delicate things was also stimulated by his experience of the tropical scenery of South and Central America, which he visited in the 1860s. In his many resulting close-up paintings of hovering hummingbirds and orchids, he painted iridescent plumage and luminous flower petals with the same exacting detail and lavish attention to colors and surfaces seen here. Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell seems far removed from Heade’s pastoral Newburyport Marshes: Approaching Storm (TF 1999.68), yet these works, painted possibly within a year of each other, share an intimate outlook and an air of subtly charged meaning.

In Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell the gorgeous objects are presented as a random selection, yet their arrangement hints at metaphorical content. Many of the objects have a distinctly feminine character. The only wholly natural element, the apple blossoms—one of Heade’s favorite motifs, along with orchids and later flowering magnolia—symbolize youth, while at the same time they evoke the biblical Fall following Eve’s tasting of the forbidden fruit, traditionally an apple. The shell is associated with Venus, the daughter of Neptune, slyly implying approaching womanhood. Courtship rituals are indicated by the glove and fan on the table, and the pearl cross hints at future matrimony. Luminous polished surfaces are juxtaposed with soft, velvety textures, sensuously curving forms are arrayed against rigid lines, and open display contrasts with partial concealment or truncation. Heade’s opulent image hints at the contradictions and conflicts underpinning American culture and society in the Gilded Age.
ProvenanceThe artist
Estate of Eugene Sussel, Baltimore, Maryland
Sotheby's, New York, New York, September 23, 1993, lot 24
Jordan-Volpe Gallery, New York, New York, 1993
Sotheby's, New York, New York, May 27, 1999, lot 122
Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Chicago, Illinois, 1999
Exhibition History
American Art, Jordan-Volpe Gallery, New York, New York (organizer). Venue: Jordan-Volpe Gallery, New York, New York, 1994. [exh. cat.]

Martin Johnson Heade, A Survey: 1840–1900, Eaton Fine Art, West Palm Beach, Florida (organizer). Venue: Eaton Fine Art, West Palm Beach, Florida, December 1996–February 1997. [exh. cat.]

The Paintings of Martin Johnson Heade, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts (organizer). Venues: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Massachusetts, September 29, 1999–January 16, 2000; National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C., February 13–May 7, 2000; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, California, May 28–August 17, 2000. [exh. cat.]

New Faces, New Places: Recent Additions to the Terra Foundation for the Arts Collection, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, October 14–December 31, 2000.

Selections from the Permanent Collection: Two Centuries of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venues: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, March 10–July 1, 2001.

Collection Cameo, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 2001.

D'une colonie à une collection: le Musée d'Art Américain Giverny fête ses dix ans (From a Colony to a Collection: Celebrating the Tenth Anniversary of the Musée d'Art Américain Giverny), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 30–June 16, 2002.

A Place on the Avenue: Terra Museum of American Art Celebrates 15 Years in Chicago, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, November 16, 2002–February 16, 2003.

Deux collections en regard: oeuvres de la Terra Foundation for the Arts et du Detroit Institute of Arts (Side by Side: Works from the Terra Foundation for the Arts and the Detroit Institute of Arts), Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France (organizer). Venue: Musée d'Art Américain Giverny, France, March 2–June 1, 2003. [exh. cat.]

Copley to Cassatt: Masterworks from the Terra Collection, New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut and Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: New Britain Museum of American Art, New Britain, Connecticut, September 5–December 7, 2003.

A Narrative of American Art, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizer). Venue: Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, February 13–October 31, 2004.

Expanded Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection, The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, April 15, 2005–January 7, 2015.

American Encounters: The Simple Pleasures of Still Life (New Frontier IV: Fastes et fragments, Aux origins de las nature morte américaine), Musée du Louvre, Paris, France, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, and Terra Foundation for American Art, Chicago, Illinois (organizers). Venues: Musée du Louvre, Paris, France, February 4–April 27, 2015; Crystal Bridges Museum of Art, Bentonville, Arkansas, May 16–September 14, 2015; High Museum of Art, Atlanta, Georgia, September 26–January 31, 2016.

Galleries of American Art with Loans from the Terra Foundation for American Art Collection. The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, Februrary 2017–present.

Published References
“Art Notes,” New York Evening Post, May 16, 1870. Text, front page (as Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell). [may refer to TFAA work]

Sotheby's, New York, New York (September 23, 1993): lot 24. Ill. lot 24 (color).

Davis, Kate and Thomas B. Parker. American Art. New York: Jordan-Volpe Gallery, 1994. Ill. p. 69 (color).

Novak, Barbara. Martin Johnson Heade, A Survey: 1840–1900. (exh. cat., Eaton Fine Art, Inc.). West Palm Beach, Florida: Eaton Fine Art, Inc., 1996. Text p. 40; ill. p. 41.

Sotheby's, New York, New York (Sale 7320, May 27, 1999): lot 122. Ill. lot 122 (color).

Stebbins, Jr., Theodore E. The Life and Works of Martin Johnson Heade: A Critical Analysis and Catalogue Raisonné. New Haven, Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2000. Ill. p. 131 (color); p. 299, cat. no. 397 (black & white).

Yood, James. Still Life with Apple Blossoms in a Nautilus Shell, Martin Johnson Heade. Collection Cameo sheet, Terra Museum of American Art, Chicago, Illinois, September 2001. Ill. (color).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. An American Point of View: The Daniel J. Terra Collection. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 66, 197; ill. pp. 8 (color), 67 (color), 197 (black & white).

Bourguignon, Katherine M. and Elizabeth Kennedy. Un regard transatlantique. La collection d'art américain de Daniel J. Terra. Chicago, Illinois: Terra Foundation for the Arts, 2002. Text pp. 66, 197; ill. pp. 8 (color), 67 (color), 197 (black & white).

Kennedy, Elizabeth. "The Terra Museum of American Art." American Art Review (December 2002): 126–41. Ill. p. 131 (color). American Encounters: The Simple Pleasures of Still Life. (exh. cat., Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, High Museum of Art, Musée du Louvre and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Atlanta, Georgia: High Museum of Art, 2014. Text, pp. 22, 52, 54; ill. p. 53, cat. no. 6 (color).

New Frontiers IV: Fastes et fragments. Aux origines de la nature morte américaine. (exh. cat., Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, the High Museum of Art, the Musée du Louvre and the Terra Foundation for American Art). Atlanta, Georgia: The High Museum of Art, 2014. Text pp. 23, 48, 50; ill. p. 49, cat. no. 5 (color).

Mayer Heydt, Stephanie. "American Encounters, the Simple Pleasures of Still Life." Antiques and Fine Arts Magazine (January–March 2015): 148–156. Text p. 153; ill. p. 151 (color).

Mayer Heydt, Stephanie. "American Encounters, the Simple Pleasures of Still Life." Incollect (January 22, 2015).

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 pp. 98, 99; ill. p. 98, detail pp. 100–101 (color).