John Frederick Peto (American, 1854-1907)

Although inspired by the famous trompe l'oeil artist William Michael Harnett, whom he knew quite well, John Frederick Peto created his own distinct style of realistic painting that established him as one of the greatest still life artists of the nineteenth century. With less defined contours, more prosaic objects, and a greater focus on the effects of light, Peto's compositions are not imitations of Harnett's works, but rather the creations of a talented artist in his own right.

Unfortunately, by the time trompe l'oeil art grew in popularity with a 1939 exhibition at The Downtown Gallery, New York, several paintings by Peto had been spuriously signed by an unknown hand with false Harnett signatures in an effort to make them more marketable. Peto himself was not responsible for these apocryphal signatures. In 1949, scholar Alfred Frankenstein realized that several works inconsistent with Harnett's style should more accurately be attributed to Peto.