Signed and dated “2.72”, l.r.
Oil on canvas
36 x 27 inches

Provenance
Private collection, Pennsylvania

Born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in 1846, Milne Ramsey was one of six sons and two daughters born to Alexander Ramsey and Anna Eliza Milne. Around 1863, after having served nine months in the Pennsylvania Militia during the Civil War, the young Ramsey embarked upon what would be a lifelong endeavor by enrolling in the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.

From the very start of his artistic career, Ramsey focused his efforts on painting realistic still lifes. Thus, by the time he painted Still Life with Ewer and Fruit, those aspects of Ramsey’s technique that set him apart from his numerous fellow still life painters were firmly established. His work, which had a somewhat “darker” tone than his contemporaries, displayed elements of the highly realistic trompe l’oeil style, while other times he integrated objects rendered in a more impressionistic manner.

He enjoyed the challenge of painting objects with complex designs on them, such as the ewer seen here, and often employed tablecloths and background tapestries in his compositions for an even greater sense of three-dimensional realism. Long before modern artists widely utilized abstraction in their paintings, Ramsey painted a great number of eastern objects with abstract designs upon them. Ramsey was also lauded for his ability to paint reflective objects, which may be seen here in the intricate wine goblet as well as the round decorative platter placed in the background.

In 1872, the year in which Still Life with Ewer and Fruit was painted, collectors were looking for paintings such as this because of their “similarities to 17th-century Dutch still lifes, themselves being acquired by America’s newly rich, and because they contained precisely those objects which were also being accumulated in collections of antiques and bric-a-brac.” Ramsey’s success thus lay in his ability to satisfy collectors’ desires while gaining critics’ favor with his distinctive style and impeccable talent.