page_title: Claude Raguet Hirst
section_title: Style
hierarchical_section_title: Claude Raguet Hirst / Style
context_page_description: Claude Raguet Hirst was an American painter of still lifes. She was the only woman of her era to gain acclaim using the trompe-l'œil technique.
context_section_description: Hirst was one of the few women to employ trompe-l'œil during the Victorian Era. She was described as "the female Harnett" in reference to her contemporary, William Harnett. She abandoned flowers as a subject after 1890 and spent the rest of her career focusing on library table compositions. While the change in theme has been attributed to Harnett, Hirst herself related that "[Fitler] was not very orderly. His tobacco things were always around and one day I noticed what an attractive group they made. He had a meerschaum pipe that was a glorious color. It was like old ivory. I always liked old books and old engravings, so I put the pipe with some of my old books and painted them."
  According to Christine Crafts Neal, Hirst's 1890s work, A Gentleman's Table "recalls the 17th-century Dutch tradition of the moralizing (vanitas) still-life composition." The piece has the features of a typical bachelor still life, with pipes, bottles, glasses and cards arranged on a table. According to art historian Martha Evans, works in the oeuvre of contemporaries Peto and Harnett typically condoned the male culture that was represented and rarely offered depictions of alcohol. Evans relates that while Hirst's work was commissioned by a men's club in Chicago, she offers a subtle criticism of the male pursuits of gambling and drinking. Most of the bottles are empty, implying that heavy drinking has taken place. The sugar cubes and sliced lemon suggest that one of the liquors is absinthe, "considered the 'cocaine' of the nineteenth century." The overturned bottles, the cards strewn about the table and the abandonment of a pyramidal composition create a sense of disarray in the work.
caption: Hirst's painting, A Gentleman's Table (c. 1897–1902)
exif: {"Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image ExifOffset": "90", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1280", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "712"}