Wedding Cake with Wine, Almonds and Raisins
Artist
Rubens Peale
(American, 1784-1865)
Artist
Mary Jane Peale
(American, 1827 - 1902)
Date1860
MediumOil on canvas
DimensionsFramed: 24 x 36 x 2 1/2in. (61 x 91.4 x 6.4cm)
ClassificationsPAINTINGS
Credit LineMuseum Purchase
Terms
Object number79.9
Description On View
Not on viewCollections
CopyrightNo known copyright restrictions.
Label TextRubens Peale and his daughter, Mary Jane Peale, worked together on this painting of sweet luxuries. The wedding cake’s delicate icing sugar almost certainly came from the southern United States or Caribbean, where sugar plantations were notoriously brutal. The Peales celebrate the fleeting pleasures of taste and love in a composition remote from the plantation system. The painting’s completion just before the US Civil War makes this disconnection particularly stark.
