William Jacob Hays (1830-1875), Still Life with Ducks, 1857 |

Oil on canvas, unframed: 22 × 18 1/8 in. (55.9 × 46 cm) |
Gift from the Trustees of the Corcoran Gallery of Art (Gift of Mrs. Clifford R. Berry, Jr., Mr. John H. Hall, Jr., and Mr. Lewis R. M. Hall) |
2018.15.258.2 

 

The mid-nineteenth century was a time of uncertainty in America. Along with rising tensions over slavery that would eventually lead to civil war, the fledgling nation was expanding westward into indigenous territory. Fueled by the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, westward expansion into the continent meant journeying into uncultivated wilderness and tangling with dangerous wildlife. In this context, trompe l’oeil (“trick the eye”) paintings of hunting subjects, such as Still Life with Ducks, reaffirmed humanity’s dominance over nature—both the land and its animals. Such paintings hung in the dining rooms of bourgeois homes. The skill required to create these realistic paintings further attested to human agency and ability. As much as this still life is about the ducks depicted within it, then, it is also about how they got there in the first place: hunting and the act of painting.