Vedder did few still-life paintings and only four of Japanese objects. The collecting of oriental bric-a-brac became very popular in America among artists and the general public with the initiating of trade relations between Japan and the West by Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 and with the exhibition of many exotic objects at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Vedder was particularly fortunate as a collector; for his brother Alexander Madison Vedder was a physician practicing in Japan from 1865 to 1870, first privately and then as head of the Imperial Hospital at Kobe. Dr. Vedder was well aware of the beauty and exoticism of oriental items and purchased many objects. After Alexander’s death in 1870, Vedder received three trunks containing his brother’s effects, including his Japanese purchases. The objects in Vedder’s Japanese still-life paintings may have been among them.
   This painting depicts nineteenth-century items: the golden heron screen in the style of the Kano school, a shiny, black Meijiperiod vase, an album of paintings with a bonsai on the left page, and a carpet probably of Japanese manufacture but with a Western-influenced design. Despite his awareness of the nature of Japanese aesthetics, and unlike his friend Charles Caryl Coleman, who used the Japanese aesthetic in his still lifes of this period, Vedder conceived his painting in traditional Western terms. The arrangement resembles the way in which Japanese items were displayed at the 1876 Centennial and pictured in various books commemorating the fair. The manner in which Vedder luxuriated in the voluminous folds of the rich drapery reveals his long-standing love of elegant textiles, seen more often in his single-figure paintings of the 1870s. During his lifetime Vedder exhibited still lifes that included oriental objects and were sometimes titled Japanese Still Life. It is possible that the museum’s example was the one exhibited in Vedder’s showings of 1880. However, since the painting was privately owned by then, it is unlikely that the museum’s painting was the still life included in Vedder’s 1900-1901 traveling exhibition or his exhibitions in New York and Boston in 1912.

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   Exhibition Label, 1997 Still lifes are rare in the work of Elihu Vedder, who is known for landscapes and imaginary figure paintings, book illustrations, and murals. Although he often infused his art with symbolic and personal meanings, this grouping of beautiful objects is more indicative of the taste of the time. When isolationist Japan signed a treaty with American commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1854, opening some of its ports to trade, Westerners became fascinated by this long-hidden culture. By the late nineteenth century the collecting of Japanese objects had become a passionate hobby for some Americans. Vedder’s still life includes items that were probably left to him by his brother Alexander, who acquired them during the late 1860s while practicing medicine in Japan. This arrangement employs traditional Western perspective rather than asymmetrical composition of Japanese prints and paintings. He arranged the folding screen, black Meiji-period vase, album of paintings, seashell, and carpet in a manner analogous to the displays of objects in store windows and at fairs such as the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. Vedder’s still life epitomizes the enthusiasm for Asian material culture as a commodity that wealthy Westerners could acquire. This frame is from the late 1870s or 1880s. The flat center band of oak has gold leaf applied directly to the wood, without the traditional intermediary gesso layer. This treatment, which retains the patterning of the grain, was first advocated by the English pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and later adopted by James A. M. Whistler. It became popular in America beginning in the 1890s.

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