Raspberries

c. 1859

Lilly Martin Spencer

Associated Names
Lilly Martin Spencer

Painter, American, born England, 1822 - 1902

In this oval painting, a cluster of ripe red raspberries is surrounded by green leaves. The raspberries are in the center of the painting, surrounded by the leaves that extend towards the edges. Some berries hang from thin green stems over the leaves, towards the light brown ground. The background includes some shadowed green plants and a brown sky.

Media Options

This object’s media is free and in the public domain. Read our full Open Access policy for images.
On View

West Building Main Floor, Gallery M69

Artwork overview

  • Medium

    oil on canvas

  • Credit Line

    Gift of William and Abigail Gerdts

  • Dimensions

    overall (oval): 35.6 x 45.7 cm (14 x 18 in.)
    framed (oval): 59.69 × 70.17 × 10.8 cm (23 1/2 × 27 5/8 × 4 1/4 in.)

  • Accession Number

    2005.161.1

More About this Artwork

Shown from the shins up, two elegantly dressed women and two young boys, all with light skin, sit together on a bench in front of a stone balustrade with a forest landscape beyond in this horizontal portrait painting. The people are brightly lit from our left but the darkened sky suggests dusk. The boys lean onto the woman at the center of the composition, and the second woman sits to her right, our left. All of the people have pale skin, rosy cheeks, delicate noses, and their pink lips all turn up in slight smiles. The woman on our left sits with her body angled toward her friend but she turns her face to look at us with brown eyes under curving brows. Her wavy, flint-gray hair is loosely bound up so it frames the sides of her face and curls over her shoulders. Her swirling, white head covering is edged in gold and tied in a bow over her left ear, on our right. Her long-sleeved dress has a tight-fitting bodice and a low, scooped neckline lined with pleated white fabric. Her dress shimmers from sapphire blue to dusky pink, suggesting it is iridescent taffeta. Large pearls hang off the end of round, gold, hoop earrings, and a glimmering gold sash is tied around her waist. She sits with her left hand resting on her friend’s right shoulder, closer to her, and she gestures toward one of the young boys leaning on the friend’s lap with her other hand. The second woman sits with her body facing us, and she looks off to our left with gray-blue eyes. Her silvery gray, upswept hair is covered with a long piece of white fabric with pink stripes, twisted loosely into a turban-like head covering. She wears dangling gold earrings, and her dress is striped with parchment white and rust red. Her right hand, on our left, rests on her friend’s knee, and her other arm is wrapped around the older boy. He kneels on the bench and leans forward, wrapping the arm we can see around her torso. His face near hers, he looks up at her from under his lashes. A dimple marks the flushed cheek we can see. His chestnut-brown hair falls around his shoulders, and he wears a gingerbread-brown suit. The smaller and younger of the two boys rests his head on his crossed hands on her thigh, and looks out at us. He wears a white garment with a lilac-purple sash tied in a bow around his waist. There is a pale pink rosebush in the lower right corner of the painting, near the kneeling boy’s foot. The landscape beyond the balustrade is filled with dark green trees against a slate-blue sky. The painting is created with blended brushstrokes, giving it a soft look.

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Artwork history & notes

Provenance

Possibly commissioned 1859 by Helen Sanger Mellen [1810-1886], Brooklyn.[1] private collection, California;[2] private collection, California;[2] (Spanierman Gallery, New York); purchased 19 October 2003 by William H. [1929-2020] and Abigail Booth Gerdts, New York; gift (partial and promised) 2005 to NGA.
[1] The 1973 exhibition catalogue, Robin Bolton-Smith, William H. Truettner, and Cynthia D. Perlis, Lilly Martin Spencer, 1822-1902: The Joys of Sentiment, exh. cat., National Collection of Fine Arts, Washington, D.C., 1973: 198, proposed that the NGA painting may have been one of two still lifes of raspberries by Spencer, both of which are mentioned in a single letter of 17 November 1859 written to Spencer by a Mrs. Mellen, in which she requested a small, oval still life of raspberries in a brown basket or on a catalpa leaf similar to a rectangular painting with which she was familiar, owned by a “Mr. Beecher” (Lilly Martin Spencer papers, 1825-1971, Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C.: Reel 131; copy in NGA curatorial files). Along with the letter in the Archives of American Art is a transcription that identifies the letter writer as Mrs. H.L. Mellen, as well as a note on the original letter in a different hand that identifies the writer as “sister of the Reverend Henery(sic) Ward Beecher.” It was thus assumed in the 1973 catalogue that one Spencer still life of raspberries was owned by the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, and the other by his sister, Mrs. H.L. Mellen.
However, research by NGA intern Ashley E. Williams has determined that the transcription of the signature on the letter and the identification of the letter writer are incorrect. The signature actually reads “H.S. Mellen,” and while Beecher had several sisters, none were named H.L. or H.S. Mellen either before or after marriage. Williams identifies “H.S. Mellen” as possibly Helen Sanger Mellen, a member of Beecher’s church along with her husband, William H. Mellen. Williams also points out that the “Mr. Beecher” mentioned in the letter cannot be positively confirmed as Henry Ward Beecher, although it is quite possible. Mr. Beecher’s painting is probably the Spencer still life of raspberries now in the collection of Widener University Art Gallery, Chester, Pennsylvania. See Williams’ research report of June 2019, in NGA curatorial files.

[2] This information, as well as the date and source of their purchase, was supplied by the donors.

Associated Names

Inscriptions

lower left: L.M.S.

Wikidata ID

Q20188409

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