# Melons and Morning Glories

- By: Raphaelle Peale (born Annapolis, MD 1774-died Philadelphia, PA 1825)
- Date: 1813
- Medium: oil on canvas
- Classification: Paintings
- Dimensions: 20 3/4 x 25 3/4 in. (52.6 x 65.4 cm.)
- Credit line: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Paul Mellon
- Museum: [Smithsonian Institution](https://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=19311)
- Rights: [CC0 (Smithsonian Open Access)](https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)
- Picture: https://invisiblenetwork.ai/thumbs/web/e87ac1c83d67afc38ffe53fbb1082f14.jpg
- Who can see it: Little Ones profiles and older (museums give no ratings; placed by Invisible Network from the museum's own words)

Raphaelle Peale's father, Charles Willson Peale, urged his son to paint portraits instead of still lifes, which brought an artist less prestige and fewer commissions. But still lifes suited Raphaelle, who also worked as a taxidermist. He painted this melon as if it were a body opened up for examination, detailing its fluids and flesh so that the painting suggests life, fertility, and death, all at once.Exhibition Label, Smithsonian American Art Museum, 2006