Still Life with Pewter Candlestick and Clarinet

William Harnett's Still Life with Pewter Candlestick and Clarinet is a characteristic example of his trompe l'oeil virtuosity — the American tradition of illusionistic still life in which everyday objects are rendered with such exactitude that they appear physically present. Harnett, an Irish-American painter who spent significant time in Europe, combined European still-life precedents (particularly Dutch and Flemish seventeenth-century painting) with distinctly American subjects. Musical instruments were recurring elements in his arrangements, their complex surfaces — the curves of brass or the grain of wood — offering technical challenges he relished.

The hard, precise surfaces of pewter and clarinet are rendered with extraordinary attention to material specificity: the dull gleam of old metal, the keywork and bell of the instrument, the texture of wood and tarnished silver. Trompe l'oeil demands that each surface be individually studied; Harnett delivers on every element.