Oil on canvas still life painting of a basket of strawberries in grass, unsigned, attributed to George Dury (Germany/Tennessee, 1817-1894). Molded giltwood frame. Sight: 20" H x 16" W. Framed: 28-3/8" H x 24-3/8" W. Dury studied art at the Academie der Bildende Kiensti in Munich under Peter Von Cornelius, Heinrich Hesse, and Clemens Zimmerman, and as a young man won acclaim for his small cabinet portraits. Among his subjects were Prince Adalbert of Bavaria and Queen Theresa of Greece. He immigrated to the U.S. in 1849, settling first in the Cumberland mountains of East Tennessee, but found little market for his artwork there. By 1857, established a studio on Union Street in Nashville and made a name for himself painting the prominent citizens of Middle Tennessee. His business survived the Civil War – during and after which he received commissions to paint General George Thomas, Abraham Lincoln and Andrew Johnson – and he went on to produce portraits from his studio at 42-44 Union Street until a stroke in 1888. While portraits were his bread and butter, his Northern European art training suggests Dury would have been capable of creating other types of art, and he is known to have painted at least one landscape. However, he rarely signed his work. Provenance: originally owned by Dr. John Berrien Lindsley (who owned a store in the same building as Dury's studio) and descended to Margaret Lindsley Warden, who said this painting was by Dury when she sold it to Professor John Kiser in 1976. The consignor acquired it from Professor Kiser. Condition: Overall cracquelure and repair just below leaves on right side of basket. Frame possibly later, with re-gilded surface.