Still Life

William Michael Harnett

An item at Metropolitan Museum of Art

Painted after Harnett's return from studies in Munich, this tabletop still life features objects more elegant than those featured in the artist's early still life of beer steins and pipes or books and inkwells. The austere setting allows him to focus on the textiles and surfaces of a well-lit frieze of objects: worn books shown with gilt spines and fanned pages, a piccolo, and some stained, torn sheet music hanging off the table's edge. Some of these items, for example, the tall Dutch jar, are familiar models that Harnett owned and used repeatedly; but all reflect the American public's enthusiasm for collecting and displaying bric-à-brac during the 1880s.

The American Wing

An exhibit at Metropolitan Museum of Art

The American Wing's ever-evolving collection comprises some 20,000 works of art by African American, Euro American, Latin American, and Native American men and women. Ranging from the colonial to early-modern periods, the holdings include painting, sculpture, works on paper, and decorative arts—including furniture, textiles, ceramics, glass, silver, metalwork, jewelry, basketry, quill and bead embroidery—as well as historical interiors and architectural fragments.

Metropolitan Museum of Art