Skip to main content
Want more images or videos?
Request additional images or videos from the seller
1 of 7

John Haberle
"The Artist's Palette" John Haberle, Pyrography, Trompe L'oeil 19th Century

circa 1890

About the Item

John Haberle The Artist's Palette, circa 1890 Oil on panel with brushes & palette knife 18 x 27 inches Provenance: The artist Mrs. Vera Demmer (artist's daughter), by descent Kennedy Galleries, New York Berry-Hill Galleries, New York Private Collection, New York Keno Auctions, New York, Americana: Paintings, Furniture and Decorative Arts, January 17, 2012, Lot 27 Arader Galleries, New York Exhibited: New York, Kennedy Galleries, John Haberle: An Exhibition of Paintings, Drawings and Watercolors, June 8, July 15, 1970, no. 17, p. 11, illustrated. Fort Worth, Texas, Amon Carter Museum, John Haberle Master of Illusion, November 29, 1985- January 19, 1986, p. 28. New Britain Museum of American Art, John Haberle American Master of Illusion, December 11, 2009 - March 11, 2010, p. 72; this exhibition later traveled to Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, Brandywine River Museum, April 17 - July 11, 2010; Portland Museum of Art, Maine September 18 - December 12, 2010. Literature: Kennedy Galleries, Inc., Exhibition catalogue, American Still Lifes 19th & 20th Century, Kennedy Quarterly, Vol. XI, No. 2, November 1971, p. 109, (84). William Gerdts, Exhibition Catalogue, Joseph Decker, Still Lifes, Landscapes and Images of Youth, Coe Kerr Gallery, May 17 - June 11, 1988, p. XXII. Sybille Ebert-Schifferer, Deceptions and Illusions: Five Centuries of Trompe L'oeil Painting, Washington, D.C., 2002, p. 100. Kristen Nassif, Unseeing Sight: Blindness in American Art and Material Culture, Ph. D. Dissertation, Spring 2022, p. 115. John Haberle became a trompe l'oeil still life painter of subjects that aroused merriment, a sense of abandon, and wacky humor. He spent most of his life in or near his hometown of New Haven, Connecticut, where he worked as an engraver, draftsman, and lithographer, and as a custodian and preparator at Yale University's Peabody Museum of Natural History. He produced about forty extremely detailed trompe-l'oeil pictures between the mid-1880s and the late 1890s, before deteriorating eyesight forced him to give up painting. He taught drawing lessons, founded the New Haven Sketch Club, and exhibited his works at local bookstores, saloons, and hotels as well as at prestigious exhibitions at the National Academy of Design in New York and the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. One of his trompe l'oeil paintings, Time and Eternity, ca. 1890, is exquisitely painted and extremely detailed, designed to trick the eye into thinking that these are real, not painted, objects. The illusion is aided by the shallow spatial format and by the absolute clarity and precision with which the objects are painted. The objects hanging from this rough surface would have been familiar to Haberle's audience. The cracked pocket watch becomes a symbol of the fleeting quality of time, a reference to the traditional vanitas still lifes of the Dutch and Flemish Baroque masters. The playing cards, pawn tickets, betting receipts, and girlie photo are the detritus of daily life; juxtaposed with the rosary they are an obvious contrast between the temporal and the spiritual, the here and now and the hereafter. Haberle's torn, ragged scraps of paper currency also refer to the passage of time; the word GRAVE (part of the word engraved) is a blatant reference to death, emphasized by the scrap's proximity to the crucifix. The moralizing message of the painting is obvious, yet Haberle, in his paintings, often added a note of complexity to the mix by addressing current events. By juxtaposing traditional symbols of vanitas with references to well-known public controversies, Haberle has asked his audience to think for themselves on the profound philosophical and scientific issues that were filtering through late-nineteenth-century society. The extreme detail and realism made trompe-l'oeils hugely popular with the public, but late nineteenth-century art critics derided such works as mere parlor tricks which lacked art. Yet Haberle's works aim not only to fool the eye, but are often ingenious, extremely witty, and entertaining. A rebus waiting to be deciphered, they are an expression of the social and political ideas of the artist's time.
  • Creator:
    John Haberle (1856 - 1933)
  • Creation Year:
    circa 1890
  • Dimensions:
    Height: 18 in (45.72 cm)Width: 27 in (68.58 cm)
  • Medium:
  • Period:
  • Framing:
    Framing Options Available
  • Condition:
  • Gallery Location:
    New York, NY
  • Reference Number:
    1stDibs: LU1841214351012

More From This Seller

View All
"Monument 8" Calvin Marcus, Mixed Media Construction Contemporary Sculpture
Located in New York, NY
Calvin Marcus Monument 8, 2018 Wood, glass, hot glue, cardboard, plastic, paper pulp, sulfur, ash, gesso, Cel-Vinyl, flashe, watercolor and other media sculpture 22" high x 13 1/4" w...
Category

2010s Contemporary Figurative Sculptures

Materials

Glass, Plastic, Wood, Paper, Glue, Mixed Media, Watercolor, Cardboard

"Blue Fossil" Gerome Kamrowski, Abstract Surrealist, Biomorphic Expressionism
By Gerome Kamrowski
Located in New York, NY
Gerome Kamrowski Blue Fossil, 1960 Acrylic and styrofoam on board 17 x 46 inches Gerome Kamrowski was born in Warren, Minnesota, on January 19, 1914. In 1932 he enrolled in the Saint Paul School of Art (now Minnesota Museum of American Art - MMAA), where he studied with Leroy Turner...
Category

1960s Surrealist Abstract Paintings

Materials

Foam, Mixed Media, Acrylic, Board

From the Grandstand - View of Racetrack and Crowd, Saratoga Springs, New York
By Anne Diggory
Located in New York, NY
Anne Diggory (b. 1951) From the Grandstand, Saratoga Springs Racecourse, New York Oil on panel 12 x 9 inches Anne Diggory lives in Saratoga Springs, NY, ...
Category

1970s Contemporary Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Berkshires Winter Landscape, " Leo Blake, Snowy Stream in Massachusetts
By Leo Blake
Located in New York, NY
Leo B. Blake (1887 - 1976) Berkshires Winter landscape, Massachusetts, circa 1952-53 Oil on canvasboard 12 x 16 inches Signed lower right Provenance: Private Collection, Massachuset...
Category

1950s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Nude" Marguerite Stuber Pearson, Female Nude, Outdoor Boston School, American
By Marguerite Stuber Pearson
Located in New York, NY
Marguerite Stuber Pearson Nude, circa 1940 Signed lower right Oil on artist board 20 x 16 inches Marguerite Stuber Pearson was an American painter best known for her elegant portra...
Category

1940s Academic Figurative Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board

"Locomotive Train in Snowstorm, " Guy Wiggins, American Impressionist, Winter
By Guy Wiggins
Located in New York, NY
Guy C. Wiggins (1883 - 1962) Locomotive Train in Snowstorm, 1957 Oil on paperboard 8 x 10 inches Signed lower left; signed and dated on the reverse Guy Carleton Wiggins is best known for his impressionistic snow scenes of New York in 1920's. Wiggins lived in Old Lyme and Essex where he operated an art school. The Connecticut country-side was conducive to his impressionist technique of plein-air painting and broken brushwork.  Ironically, although his work includes many fine Connecticut landscapes, he is best remembered for some snow scenes of New York City. Like many other American Impressionists, Wiggins had one foot in the city and the other in the country (Vermont Hillside, South Londonderry).  Wiggins was born in Brooklyn, New York, went to England with his family as a boy, received an English grammar school education, and traveled widely abroad. He was the son of a prominent artist, Carleton Wiggins, a painter in the Barbizon style who studied with George Inness and admired Anton Mauve and Dwight Tryon...
Category

1950s American Impressionist Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Cardboard

You May Also Like

Large Scale Mixed Media Abstract - Straight Up!
Located in Soquel, CA
Wonderful large scale mixed media abstract by Elliott Fouts (American, b. 1955), 2000. Titled "Straight up" and signed on verso. A channel of green orbs...
Category

Early 2000s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Mixed Media, Oil, Foam Board

Dark Stripes
By James Koenig
Located in Buffalo, NY
An original mixed media painting and collage on board by American artist James Koenig. Created in 1970, this work is part of the Draw Near exhibition currently on view at Benjaman G...
Category

1960s Abstract Mixed Media

Materials

Board, Mixed Media, Oil

HaLo XXV
By Hyun Ae Kang
Located in Palm Beach, FL
Hyun Ae Kang is a famous South Korean Artist, who combines traditional Korean painting with Western abstract imagery using natural materials to create innovate mixed-media works that...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Resin, Mixed Media, Oil, Board

HaLo XXIV
By Hyun Ae Kang
Located in Palm Beach, FL
Hyun Ae Kang is a famous South Korean Artist, who combines traditional Korean painting with Western abstract imagery using natural materials to create innovate mixed-media works that...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Resin, Mixed Media, Oil, Board

HaLo XX
By Hyun Ae Kang
Located in Palm Beach, FL
Hyun Ae Kang is a famous South Korean Artist, who combines traditional Korean painting with Western abstract imagery using natural materials to create innovate mixed-media works that...
Category

2010s Abstract Abstract Paintings

Materials

Canvas, Resin, Mixed Media, Oil, Board

Oil Painting of Snowdon Mountains & Lakes in Wales by Modern British Artist
Located in Preston, GB
Oil Painting of Snowdon Mountains & Lakes in Wales by Modern British Artist Charles Wyatt Warren (1908-1983) Art measures 21.5 x 9.25 inches Fra...
Category

1970s Modern Landscape Paintings

Materials

Oil, Board, Mixed Media

Recently Viewed

View All