Preview: In 2005 my colleague James Mitchell discovered an unusual trompe l’oeil card rack picture. There was no attribution but judging from the text of the papers depicted and the various dates within the picture it was estimated to have been painted in the 1780s. With the assistance of Professor William H. Gerdts, the foremost authority on American still life painting, it transpired that the trompe l’oeil was by Samuel Lewis (1753-1822) a cartographer, drawing master and active member of the Philadelphia art world in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century... download document to read more.
Gallery Notes
January 2023