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Card Rack with a Jack of Hearts
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art. Free to download, adapt and use — no permission needed.
About this work
Like modern-day bulletin boards, card racks were used to gather newspaper clippings, scraps of paper, and other ephemera in one place. Although it is unclear if the items seen here carry symbolic meaning, they nevertheless demonstrate the human desire to collect and recollect. Their tattered state and frayed edges further evoke a sense of memory and nostalgia. The illusionistic quality of Peto’s pictures makes the objects appear to exist in real space. Even the cigarette butt perched at the bottom looks ready to be plucked from the painting’s frame.
Cleveland Museum of Art’s own descriptionCredit lineCard Rack with a Jack of Hearts, c.1895. John F. Peto (American, 1854–1907). Oil on canvas; framed: 95.9 x 83.2 x 4.4 cm (37 3/4 x 32 3/4 x 1 3/4 in.); unframed: 76.2 x 63.5 cm (30 x 25 in.). The Cleveland Museum of Art, Purchase from the J. H. Wade Fund, 1973.30
