Vedder did few still-life paintings and only four of Japanese objects. The collecting of oriental bric-a-brac became very popular in America among artists and the general public with the initiating of trade relations between Japan and the West by Commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1853 and with the exhibition of many exotic objects at the 1876 Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia. Vedder was particularly fortunate as a collector; for his brother Alexander Madison Vedder was a physician practicing in Japan from 1865 to 1870, first privately and then as head of the Imperial Hospital at Kobe. Dr. Vedder was well aware of the beauty and exoticism of oriental items and purchased many objects. After Alexander’s death in 1870, Vedder received three trunks containing his brother’s effects, including his Japanese purchases. The objects in Vedder’s Japanese still-life paintings may have been among them. This painting depicts nineteenth-century items: the golden heron screen in the style of the Kano school, a shiny, black Meijiperiod vase, an album of paintings with a bonsai on the left page, and a carpet probably of Japanese manufacture but with a Western-influenced design. Despite his awareness of the nature of Japanese aesthetics, and unlike his friend Charles Caryl Coleman, who used the Japanese aesthetic in his still lifes of this period, Vedder conceived his painting in traditional Western terms. The arrangement resembles the way in which Japanese items were displayed at the 1876 Centennial and pictured in various books commemorating the fair. The manner in which Vedder luxuriated in the voluminous folds of the rich drapery reveals his long-standing love of elegant textiles, seen more often in his single-figure paintings of the 1870s. During his lifetime Vedder exhibited still lifes that included oriental objects and were sometimes titled Japanese Still Life. It is possible that the museum’s example was the one exhibited in Vedder’s showings of 1880. However, since the painting was privately owned by then, it is unlikely that the museum’s painting was the still life included in Vedder’s 1900-1901 traveling exhibition or his exhibitions in New York and Boston in 1912.

After the centennial of 1876 the foremost place for American artists to show was no longer New York but Paris. By the late nineteenth century the Paris Salon was the most important exhibition space in the Western world. Artists from many nations would submit their best works to its annual exhibition. The honor of being accepted presaged an artist’s future success. Thousands of paintings, sculptures, and works on paper were presented at each Salon; the exhibition halls were so crowded that paintings were hung to the ceiling with sculptures scattered about. To be hung “on the line” (at eye level) meant a work of art ranked among the best in the show. Since a painting might be skied (hung near the ceiling), many artists painted on a large scale to ensure that their work could be seen no matter where it was placed.
Contrary to earlier periods, American painting in the late 1800s was no longer dominated by a single aesthetic. Munich-school paintings—narrative scenes, often based on literature or history and painted in a dark palette—as well as small figure paintings in the realist tradition were popular in both France and the United States. Large portraits represent the academic style that dominated official taste during this era. Bright, sun-drenched scenes by a more progressive group of artists, the impressionists are diametrically opposite in color, mood, and concept to muted tonalist and symbolist works. Whereas the impressionists celebrated contemporary life with all its transformations, the tonalists and symbolists created hazily illuminated, dreamlike imagery.
Sculptures range from academic examples of idealized mythological imagery to expressions of the newer interest in the emotive potential of the human form. Equestrian bronzes by Frederic Remington demonstrate that at the turn of the century there was a continuing enthusiasm for heroic depictions of the West despite the increased internationalism of American taste.

Exhibition Label, 1997 Still lifes are rare in the work of Elihu Vedder, who is known for landscapes and imaginary figure paintings, book illustrations, and murals. Although he often infused his art with symbolic and personal meanings, this grouping of beautiful objects is more indicative of the taste of the time. When isolationist Japan signed a treaty with American commodore Matthew C. Perry in 1854, opening some of its ports to trade, Westerners became fascinated by this long-hidden culture. By the late nineteenth century the collecting of Japanese objects had become a passionate hobby for some Americans. Vedder’s still life includes items that were probably left to him by his brother Alexander, who acquired them during the late 1860s while practicing medicine in Japan. This arrangement employs traditional Western perspective rather than asymmetrical composition of Japanese prints and paintings. He arranged the folding screen, black Meiji-period vase, album of paintings, seashell, and carpet in a manner analogous to the displays of objects in store windows and at fairs such as the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial. Vedder’s still life epitomizes the enthusiasm for Asian material culture as a commodity that wealthy Westerners could acquire. This frame is from the late 1870s or 1880s. The flat center band of oak has gold leaf applied directly to the wood, without the traditional intermediary gesso layer. This treatment, which retains the patterning of the grain, was first advocated by the English pre-Raphaelite Dante Gabriel Rossetti, and later adopted by James A. M. Whistler. It became popular in America beginning in the 1890s.

• About the Era.
• Gerdts, William H., and Russell Burke. American Still-life Painting. New York: Praeger, 1971.
• Quick, Michael.  American Expatriate Painters of the Late Nineteenth Century.  Dayton: The Dayton Art Institute, 1976.
• Gerdts, William H. Painters of the Humble Truth: Masterpieces of American Still Life, 1801-1939. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 1981.
• Fort, Ilene Susan and Michael Quick.  American Art:  a Catalogue of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art Collection.  Los Angeles:  Los Angeles County Museum of Art, 1991.
• LACMA: Obras Maestras 1750-1950: Pintura Estadounidense Del Museo De Arte Del Condado De Los Angeles. Mexico, D.F.: Museo Nacional de Arte, 2006.