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| A perfect mid-1800s, Chesapeake Bay lunch: arsters and beer. |
Andrew John Henry Way was born in Washington D.C. in 1826 and died in Baltimore, Maryland in 1888.
One of his patrons was William Thompson Walters, a wealthy banking, rail and steel magnet (I could not resist the pun). Walters was also a grape-grower and a collector of European-style, fine art. That is, pictures that was not solely focused on portraits, i.e. vanity; images that had "artistic" interest.
Consequently, many of A.J.H. Way's pictures are still-lifes with grapes in them.
He certainly had flair. The only thing we own that is anything like those is a lovely little painting of a lemon being inspected by a snail. It sounds bonkers but it works a treat.
ReplyDeleteNice coffee posting, sir. Seems the Patron of the Artist had some say in the subjects of his art.
ReplyDelete"I'm not telling you what you can paint, Sir. I'm telling you what I will pay you to paint. Can you see the difference?"
DeleteWhat a grape way to start the morning ERJ!
ReplyDelete(I, too, cannot resist puns...)
Those are lovely grapes! I wonder if they were portraits of the favorite cultivars of the grape-growing magnate?
ReplyDeleteThe huge cluster of red grapes is Schiava Grossa which was a darling of the greenhouse growers and is a parent of Muscat Hamburg which was hybridized in England in 1850.
DeleteMuscat Hamburg still has a cult following and Schiava Grossa (also known as Trollinger) is still grown on significant acreage near Stuttgart, Germany.