id: 141641 accession number: 1965.235 share license status: CC0 url: https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.235 updated: 2025-03-08 13:06:02.605000 Memento Mori, "To This Favour", 1879. William Michael Harnett (American, 1848–1892). Oil on canvas; framed: 77.9 x 98.4 x 8.6 cm (30 11/16 x 38 3/4 x 3 3/8 in.); unframed: 61.3 x 81.5 cm (24 1/8 x 32 1/16 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund, 1965.235 title: Memento Mori, "To This Favour" title in original language: series: series in original language: creation date: 1879 creation date earliest: 1879 creation date latest: 1879 current location: 207 American Realism creditline: Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund copyright: --- culture: America technique: oil on canvas department: American Painting and Sculpture collection: American - Painting type: Painting find spot: catalogue raisonne: --- CREATORS * William Michael Harnett (American, 1848–1892) - artist --- measurements: Framed: 77.9 x 98.4 x 8.6 cm (30 11/16 x 38 3/4 x 3 3/8 in.); Unframed: 61.3 x 81.5 cm (24 1/8 x 32 1/16 in.) state of the work: edition of the work: support materials: inscriptions: inscription: signed lower right: WMHARNETT / 1879 [WMH in monogram]. translation: remark: --- CURRENT EXHIBITIONS title: Year in Review: 1965 opening date: 1965-10-27T04:00:00 Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965). --- LEGACY EXHIBITIONS * {'description': 'Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art, The Reality of Appearance: The Trompe L\'Oeil Tradition in American Painting (21 March-3 May 1970); traveled to New York, Whitney Museum of American Art (19 May-5 July 1970); (not shown at Berkeley and Detroit), cat. no. 28, pp. 6-9, 56-93, listed p. 64, illus. p. 65 as Memento Mori-"To This Favour."', 'opening_date': '1970-03-21T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'Tulsa, Philbrook Art Center, Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1939 (27 September-1 November 1981); traveled to Oakland, Oakland Museum of Art (8 December 1981-24 January 1982); Baltimore, Baltimore Museum of Art (2 March-25 April 1982), illus. p. 156, fig. 8.4 as Memento Mori-"To This Favour," pp. 153-207, 292.', 'opening_date': '1981-09-27T00:00:00'} * {'description': 'New York, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, William M. Harnett (14 March-14 June 1992); traveled to Fort Worth, Amon Carter Museum (18 July-18 October 1992); San Francisco, The Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco (14 November 1992-14 February 1993); Washington, D.C., National Gallery of Art (14 March-13 June 1993), cat. no. 12, illus. p. 10, plate 12, pp. xiv-xvi, 148-159 (John Wilmerding "Notes of Change"), detail illus. p. 252, pp. 252-263 (Chad Mandeles, "Grave Counsel"), pp. 309-314 (Thayer Tolles Mickel "Chronology).', 'opening_date': '1992-03-14T00:00:00'} --- PROVENANCE The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio date: 1965- footnotes: citations: (Kennedy Galleries, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)1 date: -1965 footnotes: *
1There is no record of this painting's provenance prior to the Kennedy Galleries, and the Kennedy Galleries records at the Archives of American Art (A1993-022, box 6) contain no relevant information.  It is possible that the canvas appeared in Paintings of the Late W.M. Harnett on Exhibition, held at Earle’s Galleries, Philadelphia, in 1892, as catalog no. 10, A Tribute to Shakespeare. 
citations: --- fun fact: digital description: wall description: --- RELATED WORKS --- CITATIONS The Kennedy Quarterly 5:2 (Jan. 1965). page number: url: Harnett, William Michael, and E. T. Snow. Paintings of the Late W.M. Harnett: On Exhibition, Earle's Galleries. Philadelphia: Earle's Galleries, 1892. page number: url: Elder, Nika. William Harnett's Curious Objects: Still-Life Painting after the American Civil War. (Oakland, CA: University of California Press, 2022). page number: Mentioned p. 75; Reproduced p. 77. url: "Recorders, Deceivers and Dreamers." The Kennedy Quarterly V, no. 2 (January 1965): 68-128. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 68-69 url: Lee, Sherman E. “Year in Review.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 52, no. 9 (November 1965): 124–157. page number: Reproduced: p. 139; Mentioned: p. 124, 154-155, no. 94 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152069 "Accessions of American and Canadian Museums, October-December 1965." The Art Quarterly 29, no. 1 (1966): 71-87. page number: Mentioned: p. 72; reproduced: p. 82 url: "La Chronique des Arts." Gazette Des Beaux-Arts 67, no. 1165 (February 1966). page number: Reproduced: p. 65, no. 252 url: "Recent Accessions in the American Field." Art in America 54, no. 3 (May/June 1966): 45-48. page number: Reproduced: p. 45 url: “Annual Report for 1965.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 6 (June 1966): 137–171. page number: Mentioned: p. 142 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152106 Frankenstein, Alfred V. After the Hunt; William Harnett and Other American Still Life Painters, 1870-1900. Rev. ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1969. page number: Mentioned: p. 171, no. 60A url: Adams, Celeste, Rita Myers, Adele Z. Silver, and Cleveland Museum of Art Department of Art History and Education. An Introduction to American Art in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1972. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 14 url: Price, Vincent. The Vincent Price Treasury of American Art. Waukesha, Wis.: Country Beautiful Corp., 1972. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 158 url: “A Check List. American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in the Cleveland Museum of Art.” The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 1 (January 1973): 21–35. page number: Mentioned: p. 26, no. 69 url: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152465 Wilmerding, John. Important Information inside: The Art of John F. Peto and the Idea of Still-Life Painting in Nineteenth-Century America. Washington: National Gallery of Art, 1983. page number: Mentioned: p. 131; Reproduced: p. 128, fig. 120 url: Mandeles, Chad. “William Michael Harnett’s ‘The Old Cupboard Door’ and the Tradition of Vanitas.” American Art Journal 18, no. 3 (Summer 1986): 51–62. page number: Mentioned: p. 53; Reproduced: p. 55, fig. 4 url: https://doi.org/10.2307/1594442 Groseclose, Barbara S. “Vanity and the Artist: Some Still-Life Paintings by William Michael Harnett.” American Art Journal 19, no. 1 (Winter 1987): 51–59. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 54-55, fig. 3 url: https://doi.org/10.2307/1594471 Reynolda House Museum of American Art, Barbara Babcock Millhouse. American Originals: Selections from Reynolda House Museum of American Art. New York: Abbeville Press: American Federation of Arts, 1990. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 82-84, fig. 11 url: Cleveland Museum of Art. Still-Life Paintings in Gallery 222: The Cleveland Museum of Art. [Cleveland, Ohio]: [The Museum], 1992. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: fig. 5 url: Cleveland Museum of Art, and Alan Chong. European & American Painting in the Cleveland Museum of Art : A Summary Catalogue. Cleveland, Ohio: Cleveland Museum of Art, 1993. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 98 url: Studing, Richard. Shakespeare in American Painting: A Catalogue from the Late Eighteenth Century to the Present. Rutherford [N.J.], London: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press; Associated University Presses, 1993. page number: Mentioned: p. 75, no. 342; reproduced: cat.no. 342 url: Kelly, Raymond J., and Flint Institute of Arts. To Be, or Not to Be: Four Hundred Years of Vanitas Painting. Flint, Mich.: Flint Institute of Arts, 2006. page number: Mentioned and reproduced: p. 28, fig. 12 url: Adams, Henry. What's American about American art?: a gallery tour in the Cleveland Museum of Art. Cleveland: Cleveland Museum of Art, 2008. page number: Reproduced: fig. 11, p. 12 url: Arendsee, M., and M. Steinman-Arendsee. "Take the CAN disability aesthetics tour, at the Cleveland Museum of art." CAN Journal (Winter 2019/20): 76-87. page number: Mentioned p. 80 url: --- IMAGES web: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1965.235/1965.235_web.jpg print: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1965.235/1965.235_print.jpg full: https://openaccess-cdn.clevelandart.org/1965.235/1965.235_full.tif