Poor Artist's Cupboard

Probably purchased from the artist December 1839 by the Apollo Association, New York; probably won at the Apollo Association annual auction December 1839 by Albert Christie, New York. William B. Bement [1817-1897], Philadelphia, by 1884;[1] (his estate sale, American Art Association, 27-28 February 1899, no. 121, as _Assets of a Poor Artist_); purchased by J. Sterling. Mr. and Mrs. William Morrell, Cambridge, Massachusetts.[2] purchased by (Victor Spark, New York);[3] (M. Knoedler & Co., New York), by 1954;[4] purchased October 1955 by the Corcoran Gallery of Art, Washington;[5] acquired 2014 by the National Gallery of Art. [1] The painting can be seen in an 1884 photograph of Bement's dining room reproduced in Charles M. Skinner, _Catalogue of Works of Art, Wiith Illustrations and Descriptions; Also, Views of the Summer and Winter Homes, Etc. of William B. Bement, of Philadelphia, PA._, Philadelphia,1884: n.p., repro., and Chad Mandeles, "William Michael Harnett's _The Old Cupboard Door_ and the Tradition of _Vanitas_," _American Art Journal_ 18, no. 3 (1986): repro. 58. [2] According to a letter (copy in NGA curatorial files) of 8 June 1955, from W.F. Davidson of Knoedler to Charles L. Glover, Jr., the painting was in the Morrell family for many years. [3] Telegram of 8 June 1955, John Costano (of the Costano Art Gallery in Boston) to Corcoran director Hermann Warner Williams, Jr. (in NGA curatorial files). [4] The Knoedler number "A5801" is penciled on the reverse of the painting's cradle crossbar, near the top center, directly above a gummed label printed with the same number in blue. [5] The painting is listed on page 176, November 1955, Sales Book 17, 1953 July - 1958 March, in the M. Knoedler & Co. Records, Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles (copy in NGA curatorial files). The acquisition from Knoedler also included the exchange of several paintings that had been deaccessioned by the Corcoran.