Office Board

Office Board

Office Board
Artist:John F. Peto (1854–1907)
Date:1885
Culture:American
Medium:Oil on canvas
Dimensions:24 3/8 x 19 7/8 in. (61.9 x 50.5 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:George A. Hearn Fund, 1955

Peto’s numerous “rack” pictures were often commissioned, and many contain clues to the identities of their original owners in the objects stuck behind the crisscrossed tape. In this example, a postcard and an envelope are clearly addressed to Dr. Bernard Goldberg, a chiropodist and a neighbor of Peto’s in Philadelphia. The doctor may well have asked the artist to make the painting. Among the items depicted is a portrait, presumably of the doctor, perhaps representing an actual photograph taken by Peto. As seen here, Peto strove for decorative effects of color and texture and was less interested in illusionistic realism than was William Michael Harnett.

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