John Frederick Peto, Books on a Table, c. 1900
John Frederick Peto (American, 1854 - 1907)
Books on a Table, c. 1900
Oil on canvas, 24 5/8 x 42 7/8 inches (62.55 x 108.89 cm)
The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Purchase: William Rockhill Nelson Trust through the exchange of a gift of the Friends of Art, 90-11
After a brief early career in Philadelphia, Peto retreated to Ocean Heights, New Jersey, where he supported himself as a musician playing the coronet. His paintings were critically ignored in his lifetime and he was only rediscovered in the 1940s. For years Peto’s work was confused with that of William Harnett, but today we can see that his sensibility is fundamentally different, and in many ways more modern. This is arguably the best of Peto’s large still-life paintings of books, and surely one of his masterpieces. The Nelson-Atkins had little in the way of American still-life, so this was a logical addition to the collection.
Bibliography
Henry Adams, Handbook of American Paintings, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, Kansas City, 1991, pp. 56-57.
Henry Adams, "A Masterpiece of American Still Life: John Frederick Peto's Books on a Table,” Calendar of Events, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, September l990.