Venetian Vase & Chambered Nautilus 

Daniel Greene made this still life painting, Venetian Vase & Chambered Nautilus, fairly late in his career. Still life as a genre has a long history within the western academy. It’s a type of painting that seemingly eschews political content. Greene here assembles familiar and attractive objects to create something beautiful. The cultural references include the titular Venetian vase, as well as roses. Roses have a clear, conventional association with love. The nautilus shell however might be less familiar to a contemporary audience. These shells were common in the cabinets of curiosities collected by wealthy Europeans as early as the 16th century. They are emblems of the wealth, empire, and global trade that supported the art world. In order to understand a painting like this, historians will look at not just the painting itself, but also the other social and institutional contexts that gave rise to it.