Charles Alfred Meurer Still Life Oil Painting with Fruit

Charles Alfred Meurer (Ohio/Germany, 1865 – 1955)
Untitled still life with fruit, 1908; possibly reworked in 1935
Oil on canvas
Signed to lower left and dated 1935; signed to lower right and dated 1908
Charles Meurer was born in Germany to American parents and 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 École 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
- darkening to pigments, broad areas of revarnishing and overpainting, smaller spots of inpainting throughout; stretcher marks, craquelure; slight buckling at corners; stains to liner; scuffs, finish loss, and other signs of wear to frame.

Dimensions
35.0" W x 29.0" H x 2.0" D
- measures frame; sight measures 29.75" W x 23.75" H.