{
"data": {
"id": 141641,
"accession_number": "1965.235",
"share_license_status": "CC0",
"tombstone": "Memento Mori, \"To This Favour\", 1879. William Michael Harnett (American, 1848\u20131892). 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",
"current_location": "207 American Realism",
"title": "Memento Mori, \"To This Favour\"",
"creation_date": "1879",
"creation_date_earliest": 1879,
"creation_date_latest": 1879,
"artists_tags": [
"male"
],
"culture": [
"America"
],
"technique": "oil on canvas",
"support_materials": [],
"department": "American Painting and Sculpture",
"collection": "American - Painting",
"type": "Painting",
"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.)",
"dimensions": {
"framed": {
"height": 0.779,
"height_inch": 30,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.6875,
"width": 0.984,
"width_inch": 38,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.75,
"depth": 0.086,
"depth_inch": 3,
"depth_inch_fraction": 0.375
},
"unframed": {
"height": 0.613,
"height_inch": 24,
"height_inch_fraction": 0.125,
"width": 0.815,
"width_inch": 32,
"width_inch_fraction": 0.0625
}
},
"state_of_the_work": null,
"edition_of_the_work": null,
"copyright": null,
"inscriptions": [
{
"inscription": "signed lower right: WMHARNETT / 1879 [WMH in monogram].",
"inscription_translation": null,
"inscription_remark": null,
"sortorder": null
}
],
"exhibitions": {
"current": [
{
"id": 300794,
"title": "Year in Review: 1965",
"description": "Year in Review: 1965. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer) (October 27-November 14, 1965).",
"opening_date": "1965-10-27T04:00:00"
}
],
"legacy": [
{
"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": [
{
"description": "The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, Ohio",
"citations": [],
"footnotes": null,
"date": "1965-",
"sortorder": 1
},
{
"description": "(Kennedy Galleries, New York, NY, sold to the Cleveland Museum of Art)1",
"citations": [],
"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\u2019s Galleries, Philadelphia, in 1892, as catalog no. 10, A Tribute to Shakespeare.
"
],
"date": "-1965",
"sortorder": 2
}
],
"find_spot": null,
"related_works": [],
"former_accession_numbers": [],
"did_you_know": "Harnett\u2019s family left Ireland during the potato famine and emigrated to the United States.",
"early_education_description": null,
"artlens_description": null,
"description": "The Latin term memento mori describes a traditional subject in art that addresses mortality. In Harnett\u2019s example, the extinguished candle, spent hourglass, and skull symbolize death. A quote from William Shakespeare\u2019s Hamlet, inscribed on the inside cover of a tattered book, reinforces the theme. It comes from the play\u2019s famed graveyard scene where Hamlet discovers a skull and grimly ponders his beloved Ophelia, ironically unaware that she is already dead. The \"paint\" in the quote not only refers to Ophelia\u2019s makeup, but also wittily evokes the artifice of Harnett\u2019s picture.",
"external_resources": {
"wikidata": [
"https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q60469478"
],
"internet_archive": [
"https://archive.org/details/clevelandart-1965.235-memento-mori-to-this"
]
},
"citations": [
{
"citation": "The Kennedy Quarterly 5:2 (Jan. 1965).",
"page_number": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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": null,
"url": null
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"Recorders, Deceivers and Dreamers.\" The Kennedy Quarterly V, no. 2 (January 1965): 68-128.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 68-69",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "Lee, Sherman E. \u201cYear in Review.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 52, no. 9 (November 1965): 124\u2013157.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 139; Mentioned: p. 124, 154-155, no. 94",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152069"
},
{
"citation": "\"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": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"La Chronique des Arts.\" Gazette Des Beaux-Arts 67, no. 1165 (February 1966).",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 65, no. 252",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\"Recent Accessions in the American Field.\" Art in America 54, no. 3 (May/June 1966): 45-48.",
"page_number": "Reproduced: p. 45",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\u201cAnnual Report for 1965.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 53, no. 6 (June 1966): 137\u2013171.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 142",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152106"
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "Price, Vincent. The Vincent Price Treasury of American Art. Waukesha, Wis.: Country Beautiful Corp., 1972.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 158",
"url": ""
},
{
"citation": "\u201cA Check List. American Paintings and Water Colors of the Eighteenth, Nineteenth, and Early Twentieth Centuries in the Cleveland Museum of Art.\u201d The Bulletin of the Cleveland Museum of Art 60, no. 1 (January 1973): 21\u201335.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 26, no. 69",
"url": "http://www.jstor.org/stable/25152465"
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "Mandeles, Chad. \u201cWilliam Michael Harnett\u2019s \u2018The Old Cupboard Door\u2019 and the Tradition of Vanitas.\u201d American Art Journal 18, no. 3 (Summer 1986): 51\u201362.",
"page_number": "Mentioned: p. 53; Reproduced: p. 55, fig. 4",
"url": "https://doi.org/10.2307/1594442"
},
{
"citation": "Groseclose, Barbara S. \u201cVanity and the Artist: Some Still-Life Paintings by William Michael Harnett.\u201d American Art Journal 19, no. 1 (Winter 1987): 51\u201359.",
"page_number": "Mentioned and reproduced: p. 54-55, fig. 3",
"url": "https://doi.org/10.2307/1594471"
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": ""
},
{
"citation": "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": null
}
],
"url": "https://clevelandart.org/art/1965.235",
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"creditline": "Mr. and Mrs. William H. Marlatt Fund",
"image_credit": null,
"sketchfab_id": null,
"sketchfab_url": null,
"gallery_donor_text": "The Payne Fund Gallery",
"athena_id": 141641,
"creators": [
{
"id": 3101,
"description": "William Michael Harnett (American, 1848\u20131892)",
"extent": null,
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"birth_year": "1848",
"death_year": "1892",
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"legal_status": "accessioned",
"accession_date": "1965-09-11T00:00:00",
"sortable_date": 1879,
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"date_text": "1879",
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"alternate_titles": [],
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"updated_at": "2026-05-29 07:16:28.608000"
}
}