Raspberries

c. 1859

Lilly Martin Spencer

Painter, American, born England, 1822 - 1902

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 69-A

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

    2005.161.1

More About this Artwork

Shown from the knees up, a woman stands facing and looking at us with her head tilted a little to our left in this vertical portrait painting. She has pale skin, a heart-shaped face with rosy cheeks, and a rose-pink bow mouth. Thin, arched, sable-brown eyebrows frame her gray eyes. A wreath of pale pink flowers and curling white ostrich feathers crowns her long gray hair, which is piled high on her head. Loose curly tendrils brush both shoulders. Her glowing, silver satin gown is trimmed with delicate sheer lace around the wide, plunging neckline and sleeves, and has a pink sash around her narrow waist. Pearl bracelets adorn her wrists. She leans to her left, our right, to rest her left elbow against a waist-high, cinnamon-brown stone pedestal, which is decorated with a bronze-colored garland and bow on the side facing us. A ring of blue, yellow, red, and pink flowers, woven with strands of ivy, dangles in the hand resting on the pedestal. Her right hand hangs loosely by her side. Along the left edge of the dimly lit background, a tree with a thick trunk angles into the upper left corner. A smaller sapling grows just in front of it. On the right, bushes with olive and fern-green leaves dotted with lilac-purple flecks rise above the pedestal. Dark clouds fill most of the top third of the canvas but they part around her head to reveal the soft blue sky. The artist signed and dated the work in white in the lower right corner, “L. Vigée Le Brun 1782.”

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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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