Charles Alfred Meurer Still Life Oil Painting with Fruit, 1908

Item Details

Charles Alfred Meurer (German-born American, Cincinnati, 1865 – 1955)
Untitled (still life with fruit), 1908
Oil painting on canvas
Signed and dated to lower right and lower left
Painting appears to have been retouched by artist in 1935

Charles Meurer was born in Germany to American parents, and was raised in Tennessee. He eventually settled in Terrace Park, Ohio, where he maintained a studio until his death in 1955. He was proclaimed “the last living member of the great school of American Trompe L’oeil.” He had studied at the Art Academy of Cincinnati under Frank Duveneck, as well as in France at the Academy Julian and Ecole des Beaux-Arts. However, it was seeing the work of Michael Harnett at the Cincinnati Industrial Exposition of 1886 that inspired his exploration of Trompe L’Oeil. His work My Passport, painted the year of Harnett’s death, won honorable mention at the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and established his national reputation.

• Item not examined outside of mounting

Condition

- discoloration, fiber and dust accretions to surface; slight creasing throughout the composition; signs of frame abrasions to outer margins; aging, wear, accretions and loss to frame; wear, staining and abrasions to verso.

Dimensions

- measures frame; sight measures 29.5" W x 23.5" H.

Item #

ITMG591161