Brooklyn Museum: American Art: Still Life with Cake

Want to add this object to a set? Please join the Posse, or log in.

Still Life with Cake

Compare this work by Raphaelle Peale with a painting by Severin Roesen. Unlike the latter, a lavish display that fills the canvas, the work here seems bare, almost empty. They suggest a restraint that perhaps reflects the impoverished circumstances of the artist's life. This follows a simple compositional structure typical of his painting, with a few objects arranged on as ledge before an indistinct background. Still Life with Cake portrays only a blemished apple, raisins, and a "poor man's pound cake," usually made from leftover dough to which sugar or nutmeg would be added.

Artist: Raphaelle Peale, American, 1774-1825
Medium: Oil on panel
Dates: 1822
Dimensions: 9 1/2 x 11 5/16 in. (24.1 x 28.7 cm)
Signature: Signed lower right: "Raphaelle Peale Jany: 1st. 1822"
Collections: American Art
Museum Location: This item is on view in American Identities: A New Look, Everyday Life/A Nation Divided, 5th Floor
Accession Number: 24.72
Credit Line: Museum Collection Fund
Image: Overall, 24.72_SL1.jpg. Brooklyn Museum photograph