Thomas H. Hope, "Barrel of Cheer," ca. 1888
Lisa N. Peters
Our still-life exhibition, opening January 19, includes two paintings by Thomas Henry Hope (1832-1926), an artist whose biographical details are still emerging. He is known to have come from England to America in 1864 whereupon he seems to have immediately begun service as a musician in the Civil War; he played the cornet and was a bandleader. He subsequently studied at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts, in Philadephia, where his fellow students were William Harnett and John F. Peto, painters of trompe l’oeil still lifes, in which he also became a specialist. (He graduated from the academy in 1883.)
It is now thought that Hope was probably Peto’s cousin (Peto’s father was named Thomas Hope Peto), and he shared with Peto not only the playing of cornet, but also an ironic and wry attitude in his art. This is seen in Hope’s Barrel of Cheer (ca. 1888), an appropriate painting for the end of the holiday season in which we so often look with a melancholy eye at the cast-away empty bottles that have so recently been the source of our buoyant spirits. Their presence tells us that it is time to return to ordinary life, summarily casting aside the cheer we have just enjoyed. Hiding such reminders could have been the case for this barrel, no longer of cheer. It may have been stuck in a dark cellar, as the limited light in the work seems to have come in from a small window above, casting highlights on the askew bottles and their shiny labels, which remind us of the vanitas theme that life and its pleasures are transient. A hemp rope hanging over the barrel’s edge draws us into the convincing illusion of scene to which we can all relate.
Thomas H. Hope, "Still Life with Breakfast Setting," 1880s-90s
Hope’s Still Life with Breakfast Setting is another fascinating image that adds to our curiosity about the artist. Whereas the “breakfast, luncheon, and dessert” tabletop still lifes by mid-nineteenth-century artists, John F. Francis, in particular, entice us with luscious combinations of food and beverage items spread so sensuously that we want to reach out for them, Hope’s breakfast setting is notably austere and somewhat off-putting, despite the napkin that hangs off of the table’s edge into our space. The white service is accompanied by white crackers, a stack of white bread, and eggs in the shell, with only a pat of butter to provide a sense of edibility. The dark setting offsets and accentuates the whiteness and crispness of the neatly arranged items, their placement seemingly too carefully ordered to be touched. In this painting the purity and asceticism seem extreme, raising the question: did Hope intend this painting (along with Barrel of Cheer, with its evidence of alcoholic consumption hidden away) as a subtle commentary on a highly visible issue in late nineteenth-century life, namely the powerful temperance movement–the struggle for a dry America was led by figures such as Frances Willard and Carry Nation and advocated in The Women’s Crusade of 1873-74 and The Woman’s Christian Temperance Union. Was the recipient of this breakfast “on the wagon”? Both works combine elegance with dry humor, giving Hope a unique voice within the trompe l’oeilists of his time.
