Art Institute of Chicago

Rack Picture for Dr. Nones

Attributed to William A. Mitchell

Date

1879

Medium

Oil on canvas

Culture

Philadelphia

Department

Arts of the Americas

Institution

Art Institute of Chicago

This type of trompe l’oeil (fools the eye) painting simulates an old-fashioned bulletin board that held important, yet ephemeral documents like letters and newspaper clippings under strips of ribbon. Such “rack picture” still lifes functioned as biographical portraits, in this case for Dr. Samuel Smith Nones, the prominent Philadelphia dentist who commissioned this work. Adjacent to the central letter to Dr. S. S. Nones are envelopes addressed to medical colleagues and one to Nones’s brother. The painting’s illusionistic fragments cleverly define the dentist’s professional and personal identity, narrating a rich tale of camaraderie and achievement for an inner circle of viewers. William A. Mitchell, the father of the youngest dentist in the group, likely executed the composition.

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