Life’s transient reminders of things past such as, worn out objects, rough and scrumbled surfaces, cut flowers on a table, a broken wine cork, fruit in a basket and more makeup the models of still life.  With origins in the Middle Ages and Ancient Greek and Roman art, still life paintings give the artist more leeway in the arrangement of design elements within a composition than do paintings of other types of subjects.

From the time artists began laying paint on a substrate, most all artist at one time or another have painted a still life.  I’ve selected a handful to present here from the early 19th century.

Artist, William Harnett, emigrated to the United States during the Irish potato famine.  He made his living as a silver engraver while taking night classes in art.

His still life oil paintings were inspired by the 17th century Dutch Masters.

You can’t talk about Still Life artist without talking about Raphaelle Peale.  He set the pattern for American Still Life artists, inspired by the still life work he saw in his travels to Mexico as a young man.

He was the son of Charles Wilson Peale who was best known for his portraits of the leading figures of the American Revolution.

Not a lot is known about Severin Roesen except he painted at least three hundred paintings of which twelve were known to have been dated.

It is known that he emigrated to the United States in 1848.  He lived in New York, exhibiting his paintings there, until he left his family and moved to Williamsport, Pennsylvania 1857.

The Williamsport Sun and Banner had an article on him in 1895, writing about his art and studio.  It is unknown where he went to when he left Williamsport, and the date and place of his death is unknown.  He simply went away.