• North American Mycological Association

    Promoting, pursuing and advancing mycology

  • Asociación Micológica de América del Norte

    Perseguir y hacer avanzar la micología

  • Association Mycologique d'Amérique du Nord

    Poursuivre et faire progresser la mycologie

Registry of Mushrooms in Works of Art

1750-1850 – Romanticism, Neoclassicism, etc.
(excluding Victorian Fairy Paintings)

Note: Included in this period is the phase of greatest productivity of the artist, not necessarily the dates of birth or death. Click on any thumbnail below to enlarge.

 

Audubon, John-James. French-American. Santo Domingo 1785-NY 1851

American Pipit
  • American Pipit (Brown Titlark)
  • Medium: Print
  • Mushroom description: Anthus rubescens, and, on the background, two species of mushrooms reminiscent of Conocybe (the brown one at the left), and of Mycena (the small white ones)
  • Reference: Peterson, Roger Tory and Peterson, Virginia Marie. Audubon's Birds of America: The Audubon’s Society Baby Elephant Folio. New York: Abbeville Press. (Revised edition) 1991.
  • Note: Reported by André de Meijer and Les Braund

Bolze, Carl. German. Wolfratshausen 1801-1878

Bolze, Poisonous Mushroom
  • Poisonous Mushrooms (Giftpilze) (plus two other still life paintings)
  • Mushroom description: Amanita muscaria, A. phalloides, Armillaria mellea and other capped mushrooms
  • Location: Private collection?
  • Reference: Defrige & Zeller. Ein unbekannter Maler der Münschener Schule.

Bonvin, François. French. 1817-1887

  • Still Life with Hare (Nature morte au lièvre)
  • Mushroom description: Group of (probably) Agaricus
  • Location: Musée d'Orsay, Paris
  • Reference: Joconde website.
  • Web: http://www.culture.fr/documentation/joconde/ANVEG/anveg_02.htm click “champignon”

Chardin, Jean-Baptiste Sidéon. French, 1699-1779

  • The Copper Kettle (La marmite de cuivre) Still Life with Jug, Kettle and Ladle. 1750-60
  • Mushroom description: Agaricus bisporus next to kitchen utensils. Possibly the earliest painting of this species
  • Location: The Louvre, Paris
  • Reference: Schug. Die 100 schönste Gemälde der Welt. Köln. 1990.
  • [b]
  • Attributed to Chardin
  • Kitchen Table and Utensils with Side of Lamb (Table de cuisine et ustensiles avec un carre de mouton)
  • Location: Musée National Picasso, Paris
  • Reference: Joconde website

Cole, Thomas. American (born in England). Feb. 1, 1801, Bolton-le-Moors, Lancashire, England-d. Feb. 11, 1848, Catskills, New York

  • [a]
  • View from Mount Holyoke, North Hampton, Massachusetts, After a Storm. 1836
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 130.8 x 183
  • Mushroom description. Polypores on dead trees
  • Location: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
  • Web: Metropolitan Museum of Art
  • [b]
  • View from Mount Video, the Seat of Daniel Wadsworth, Esq. 1928.
  • Medium: Oils on panel; size: 50.2x66.2 in.
  • Mushroom description: Polypores on dead trees
  • Location: Wadsworth Athenaeum, Hartford, Connecticut
  • Web: Wikimedia Commons
  • [d]
  • Expulsion from the Garden of Eden. 1827-8
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 100.9x138.4 in.
  • Mushroom description: Polypores on dead trees
  • Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Web: Olga's Gallery
  • [e]
  • A View of the Mountain Pass Called the Notch of the White Mountains
  • Medium: Oils on canvas, 102 x 155.8 inches
  • Mushroom description: Polypores on tree trunk in right foreground
  • Location: National Gallery, Washington, DC.
  • Web: National Gallery of Art, Washington

Constable, John. British. 1776-1837

  • [a]
  • Flatford Mill (Scene on a navigable river). 1816-17.
  • Medium: Oil on canvas; size: 1016 x 1270 mm. frame
  • Mushroom description: Bracket fungi on tree in right foreground. Trametes or Stereum? Possibly vine leaves?
  • Location: Tate Gallery, London
  • Reference: "Constable" by Malcolm Cormack. Cambridge University Press, 1986. Referred by Susan Stewart.
  • Web: Olga's Gallery
  • [b]
  • Edge of a wood. 1816.
  • Medium: Oil on canvas; size: 92.1 x 72.1 cm.
  • Mushroom description: Indistinct mushrooms in foreground
  • Location: Toronto Art Gallery of Ontario
  • Reference: "Constable" by Malcolm Cormack. Cambridge University Press, 1986. Referred by Susan Stewart.
  • Web: Art Gallery of Toronto

Corot, Jean-Baptiste Camille. French, 1796-1875

  • Log Invaded by Mushrooms (Buche envahie par les champignons)
  • Medium: Pencil drawing; size: 9.4 x 14.7 cm.
  • Location: Louvre, Paris (dept. of graphic arts)
  • Mushroom description: Several somewhat indistinct mushrooms, perhaps boletes, around a log
  • Web: Joconde

Durand, Asher. American. 1796-1886

  • Kindred Spirits. 1849
  • Mushroom description: Indistinct mushrooms in left foreground
  • Location: New York Public Library
  • Web: New York Public Library

English School. Anonymous. 19th century

  • A troop of Mushrooms and Toadstools
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 45.7 x 60.9 cm.
  • Mushroom description: Several red and green russulas, a parasol mushroom, others
  • Reference: Christie’s sale 7586, 22 May 2008

Eybl, Franz. Austrian. Vienna 1806-d. 1880

  • Still life with boletes (Stilleben mit Steinpilzen)
  • Mushroom description: Group of Boletus edulis and one Amanita caesarea?

French. Anonymous. 19th century

  • Still Life with Boletes (Nature morte aux Cèpes)
  • Mushroom description: A collection of about one dozen Boletus edulis
  • Reference: Thibauld, P. Eloge du Cépe. Editions Copédit Périgueux. 1990. (Back cover)

Gainsborough, Thomas. British. Sudbury 1727-London 1788

  • [a]
  • The Haymaker and the Sleeping Girl (The Mushroom Girl)
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 226 x 149 cm.
  • Mushroom description: Basket of Agaricus sp. near sleeping girl
  • Location: Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
  • Reference: Discussed in Wasson, G. and V. Mushrooms, Russia, and History. NY: Pantheon Books. 1957.
  • [b]
  • View in Suffolk. 1775
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 48x45 in.
  • Mushroom description: Seated woman with probably field mushrooms.
  • Reference: Thibauld, P. Eloge du Cépe.
  • Location: St. Louis, Missouri Art Museum
  • Note: Seen by members of the Missouri Mycological Society on a "museum foray," February 25, 2004

Gavarni, Paul. French. 1804-1866.

title
  • Young girls: Jesus, How do you Dare Eat the Mushrooms! Mushrooms, My Dear, are Like with Men. Nothing Resembles the Good Ones as Much as the Bad Ones! (Les Lorettes: Jésus! comment que tu oses manges les champignons!! Les champignons, ma belle, c’est comme les hommes, rien ressemble aux bons comme les mauvais)
  • Medium: Print
  • Location: Museum Carnavalet, Paris
  • Web: Reunion des Musees Nationaux

Gillray, James. British. London 1757-1811

  • An Excrescence - a Fungus: Alias a Toadstool upon a Dunghill. 1791
  • Medium: Etching with publisher's watercolor; size: 25.5 x 22.5 cm.
  • Mushroom description: A caricature of a mushroom with a human face
  • Location: Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge, UK.
  • Reference: Published by Hannah Humphrey, December 20, 1791.
  • Web: National Portrait Gallery, London

Glinzer, Carl. German. 1802-1878

  • Nature Study(?). 1826
  • Mushroom description: Red mushrooms
  • Location: Staatliche Kunstsammlungen, Neue Gallerie, Kassel, Germany
  • Reference: Catalog, Grimm Museum, Kassel, Germany

Grandville (pseudonym of Jean-Ignace Gérard). French. 1803-1847

  • The Dream. 1847
  • Medium: Woodcut
  • Mushroom description: Transformation of stars into dragons into umbrellas into mushrooms
  • Location: Unknown
  • Reference: From Magasin Pittoresque in Wasson, G. and V. Mushrooms, Russia, and History. NY: Pantheon Books. 1957.

Grimm, Ludwig Emil. German. Hanau 1790-Kassel 1863

  • Tree Stump (Baumstumpf). 1828
  • Location: Unknown
  • Mushroom description: Brown mushrooms on stump (Kuhneromyces?)
  • Reference: Catalog, Grimm Museum, Kassel

Harpignies, Henri-Joseph. French. 1819-1916.

  • The Village Church. 1891.
  • Medium: Oils on canvas, 18x24 in.
  • Location: St. Louis Missouri Art Museum.
  • Mushroom description: Two-three parasol mushrooms, probably Macrolepiota procera, under tree on lower left.
  • Note: Seen by members of the Missouri Mycological Society on a “museum foray,” February 25, 2004.

Hayman, Francis. British. 1708-1776.

  • Portrait of a Gentleman. Ca. 1750.
  • Medium: Oils on canvas, 28x24 in.
  • Location: St. Louis Missouri Art Museum.
  • Mushroom description: Scaly fungus, perhaps Trametes versicolor in right hand corner.
  • Note: Seen by members of the Missouri Mycological Society on a “museum foray,” February 25, 2004.

Hilleström, Pehr. Swedish. Väddö 1732-Stockholm 1816

  • Still Life with Mushrooms and Fruits
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 69 x 57 cm.
  • Mushroom description: About six mushrooms scattered, perhaps Boletus edulis
  • Location: Ostergotlands Lansmuseum, Linköping, Sweden

Hugo, Victor. French. 1802-1885

victor hugo champignon
  • Champignon (first shown 1850)
  • Medium: Ink, crayon, gouache, other; size: 47.4 x 60.8 cm.
  • Mushroom description: A gigantic blue-staining bolete in a landscape.
  • Location: Maison Victor Hugo, Paris (inventory no. 812)
  • Web: matisse.lettres.free.fr

Hunt, William Henry. British. 1790-1864

  • Still Life with Double Gloucester Cheese on a Blue and White Plate, Mushrooms in a Pannet, Carrots, Celery, and Half-Glazed Stoneware Jug…ca. 1835
  • Medium: Watercolor on paper; size: 17 x 31.5 cm.
  • Mushroom description: About a half dozen mushrooms, perhaps Agaricus campestris
  • Location: Unknown
  • Web: http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/gallery/be900e23.html

Innes, George. American. 1825-1894

  • In the Roman Campagna. 1873
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 48x24 in.
  • Mushroom description: White mushroom, perhaps Shaggy Mane (Macrolepiota procera) in lower left, by two sheep
  • Location: St. Louis Missouri Art Museum
  • Note: Seen by members of the Missouri Mycological Society on a museum foray, February 25, 2004

Khrutsky (Chuzky, Chyzky), Ivan (Jan). Polish. Ulka, Vitebsk 1810-?1885

  • [a]
  • Portrait of a Young Man with Red Shirt and Basket Of Mushrooms (Portraet Junge mit rotem Hemd und Korb mit Pilzen)
  • Mushroom description: Boletes
  • Location: Unknown
  • Note: Provided by Tjakko Stijve
  • [b]
  • Still Life with Fruits (Stilleben mit Früchte) 1839
  • Location: Unknown
  • Mushroom description: Boletes, gilled mushrooms, some with white, other with brown gills
  • Location: Unknown
  • Note: Provided by Tjakko Stijve
  • [c]
  • Basket of Mushrooms (Korb mit pilzen)
  • Mushroom description: Various boletes, in background a chanterelle and a gilled mushroom
  • Reference: Scala Archives website
  • Location: Unknown
  • Note: Provided by Tjakko Stijve
  • [d]
  • Still Life. 1839
  • Medium: Oils on canvas
  • Mushroom description: Basket of boletes, including Boletus edulis, Leccinum scabrum, and Xerocomus badius
  • Location: The Museum of the Academy of Arts, St. Petersburg
  • Web: http://www.abcgallery.com/K/khrutsky/khrutsky2.html
  • [e]
  • Still Life with Various Vegetables, Crayfish
  • Mushroom description: Approximately six boletes, (possibly) Boletus pinicola
  • Location: Odessa Museum, Russia
  • Web:
  • [f]
  • Vegetables, Fruit and Dead Game. 1830s
  • Medium: Oils on canvas
  • Mushroom description: Group of brown mushrooms with velvety caps on right foreground, perhaps boletes
  • Location: The Russian Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia
  • Web: http://www.abcgallery.com/K/khrutsky/khrutsky10.html
  • [g]
  • Beaten Game
  • Medium Oils on canvas; size: 42.2 x 71.7 cm.
  • Mushroom description: A cooking pot filled with Boletus edulis with lower parts of the stem cut off
  • Location: National Museum, Belarus
  • Web: WikiMedia Commons

Knapp, Johann. Austrian. 1778-1839

  • Homage to Joachim (Huldigung an Joacquin). 1821-22
  • Medium: Oils
  • Mushroom description: Clathrus ruber, Agaricus bisporus, Cyathus striatus, Stereum sp. and (possibly) Peziza badia
  • Location: Oberes Belvedere, Vienna

Koch, Joseph (Josef) Anton. Austrian. 1768-1839

  • Heroic landscape with rainbow (Heroische Landschaft mit Regenbogen) (second version, 1804-1815)
  • Location: Neue Pinakothek, Munich (Inventory no. WAF 447)
  • Mushroom description: Several brown capped mushrooms in middle and right background in darkness
  • Reference: Die Neue Pinakothek, Munich. 1989. Alte und Neue Pinakothek, Munich. 1994.

La Prince, Jean Baptiste. French. 1768-1795

  • The Mushrooms Seller
  • Medium: Print; size: 12 x 8.7 cm.
  • Mushroom description: Barely visible. Old woman carrying two baskets
  • Location: British Museum. (registration no. 1853,1210,780)

La Thangue, Henry H. British. 1859-1929.

  • Dawn: Gathering mushrooms
  • Medium: 56 x 69 cm.
  • Mushroom description: A girl stooped over a row of mushrooms, probably Agaricus campestris.
  • Location: Unknown
  • Reference: Gabrius website.

Lesourd de Beauregard, Ange-Louis-Guillaume. French. 1800-1885

  • Vegetables, Cabbage and Radishes, Duck and Lobster, Eggs, and Mushrooms
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 61 x 53.3 cm.
  • Mushroom description: Basket of Agaricus campestris
  • Location: Sold by Sotheby’s, NY
  • Reference: Greindl, E. Les Peintures Flamands de La Nature Morte aux XVIIe siécle. Sterrebeek. 1983.

Lewis, Henry. American (b. in England). 1819-1904

  • Saint Louis in 1846. 1848
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 36 x 28 in.
  • Mushroom description: Bracket fungus near or on slanted tree on lower left.
  • Location: St. Louis Missouri Art Museum
  • Note: Seen by members of the Missouri Mycological Society on a “museum foray,” February 25, 2004.

Michallon, Achille Etna. French, 1796-1822

  • Entrance to a Cave Dug into the Ground, Surrounded by Trees (Entré d’une cave creusé dans le sol entouré d’arbres)
  • Medium: Pencil drawing; size: 46 x 58 cm.
  • Mushroom description: This is a drawing of a mushroom cave. Note at bottom: “A Issy la cave des champignons”
  • Location: Louvre, Paris (Dept. of graphic arts)
  • Web:

Oehme, Ernst Ferdinand. German. 1797-1855

  • Hohnstein castle in the Saxonian Swiss mountains (Burg Hohnstein in der Sächsischen Schweiz) 1827
  • Medium: Oils
  • Location: Alte Nationalgalerie, Berlin (inventoryA III 314)
  • Mushroom description: Shows three Amanita muscaria on forest soil; may be one of the earliest paintings with the fly agaric
  • Reference: Museum catalogue Alte Nationalgalerie (colored, very small).
  • Note: Seen in 2002 by H. and K. Kreisel

Reynolds, Sir Joshua. British. Plympton 1723-London 1792

  • Puck. 1789
  • Medium: Oils
  • Mushroom description: Forest scene with several cap mushrooms on the ground
  • Reference: The Book of Fairies.

Richter, Johann Carl August. German. Dresden 1785-1853

  • Still Life with Lemons, Mushrooms, Beets, Fish
  • Mushroom description: Four mushrooms scattered in foreground, probably boletes
  • Location: Unknown
  • Reference: Gabrius website

Roland Delaporte, Henri Horace. French. Paris 1724 or 1725–1793

  • [a]
  • Still life with Basket of Eggs, Apples, One Mushroom (Le panier d’oefs). 1788
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 38 x 48 cm.
  • Mushroom description: One lonely button, probably Agaricus campestris
  • Location: Louvre, Paris
  • Web: http://web.culture.fr/cgi-bin/lien?nature_morte,Roland.html
  • [b]
  • Still Life with Squash and Mushrooms (Nature Morte Au Potiron Et Aux Champignons)
  • Reference: Joconde website
  • Location: Musée Des Beaux-Arts, Rouen, France
  • Web: http://www.culture.fr/documentation/joconde/ANVEG/anveg_02.htm click “champignon”

Rowlandson, T. British. 1756-1827

  • The Last Gasp or Toadstools Mistaken for Mushrooms. 1813
  • Medium: Print
  • Mushroom description: Patient being examined by physician, ostensibly because of mushroom poisoning. No mushrooms seen
  • Location: National Art Gallery Rosenwald Collection (1945.5.1232.)
  • Web: http://www.skreb.co.uk/Rowlandson_The_Last_Gasp.jpg

Rusling-Meeker, Joseph. American. 1827-1887

  • The Land of Evangeline. 1874
  • Medium: Oils on canvas; size: 48x36 in.
  • Location: St. Louis Missouri Art Museum
  • Mushroom description: Scaly fungus on tree in lower center
  • Note: Seen by members of the Missouri Mycological Society on a museum foray, February 25, 2004

Schwind, Moritz von. Austrian/German, Vienna 1804-Munich 1871.

  • [a]
  • Death and Poverty overcome the Idle (Mangel und Armut überfallen den Müssigen)
  • Medium: Pen drawing. 1830
  • Mushroom description: Group of cap mushrooms in left foreground
  • Location: Unknown
  • Reference: Orsini, V. Aus Mortiz von Schwind’s Fullhorn. Barmen. 1925.
  • [b]
  • Brother and Sister (Bruder und Schwester)
  • Medium: Drawing for Sieben Raben. ca. 1830
  • Location: Unknown
  • Mushroom description: Group of cap mushrooms in left foreground
  • Reference: Kalkscmidt. Moritz von Schwind. Munich. 1943.
  • [c]
  • The Ride of Kuno von Falkenstein (Der Ritt Kunos von Falkenstein) 1843-44
  • Medium: Oils.
  • Mushroom description: Red polypores on a tree trunk.
  • Location: Museum der bildenen Künste, Leipzig
  • Reference: Orsini, V. Aus Mortiz von Schwind’s Fullhorn. Barmen. 1925.
  • Note: Winkler. Museum der bildenen Künste Leipzig. Leipzig,Museum postcard, seen in 1981.
  • [d]
  • The Symphony (Die Symphonie)
  • Medium: Etching and print, 1846. Plus pencil drawing, 1849
  • Mushroom description: Both works show polypores on a tree trunk (but an oil painting by the same title in Munich’s Neue Pinakothek shows no mushrooms)
  • Location: Museum der bildenen Künste, Leipzig
  • Note: Seen by HK in a special exhibition in Leipzig, 1997
  • [e]
  • Rübezahl (a figure in German mythology). 1851
  • Medium: Oils
  • Mushroom description: Five caps of Amanita muscaria in edge of a path.
  • Location: Oberes Belvedere, Vienna
  • Reference: 1. Museum diapositive 2. color folder. 3. colored postcard (F.A. Ackermann's Kunstverlag, München-Universal-Galerie, serie 213b, no. 2174b)
  • [f]
  • Rübezahl (a figure in German mythology). 1851-59
  • Medium: Oils
  • Location: Schack Gallery, Munich
  • Mushroom description: Five caps of Amanita muscaria (less clear than in above)
  • Reference: Deutsche Malerei der Spätromantik (Guide to Schack Gallery). 1988.
  • Note: According to V. Ostini, 1925, this is a smaller copy of the Vienna painting

Thornycroft, Mary, British. 1814-1895

  • The Princess Alice
  • Medium: Engraving.1848
  • Mushroom description: Girl holding a mushroom in her right hand
  • Note: Depicts Alice, Grand Duchess, consort of Ludwig IV, Grand Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, 1843-1878
  • Web: http://www.artandarchitecture.org.uk/images/conway/09e683dc.html

Turner, Joseph M. W. British. 1775-1851

  • Gledhow
  • Medium: Print engraved by G. Cooke, (after a Turner painting). Published 1816
  • Mushroom description: A couple collecting mushrooms
  • Location: Tate, London
  • Web: http://www.tate.org.ukel/AWork?id=19690

Vallayer-Coster, Anne. French. 1744-1818

  • Vase, Lobster, Fruits and Game (Vase, homard, fruits et gibier)
  • Mushroom description: Single Boletus edulis on side in left foreground
  • Location: Louvre, Paris
  • Note: A similar work (Still Life with Lobster, 1781) with the mushroom on the right was exhibited at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, June 2002
  • Web: Europeana

Winck, Johannes C. T. German. 1738-1797

  • [a]
  • Flower with Butterflies and Lizard
  • Medium: Oils on oak wood; size: 31 x 22.8 cm.
  • Mushroom description: One or two campanulate mushrooms, perhaps Psathyrella
  • Location: Schlossmuseum, Schloss Friedenstein. Gotha, Germany
  • Web: 1st Art Gallery
  • [b]
  • Flowers with Butterflies and Toad
  • Medium: Oils on oak wood; size: 31 x 22.8 cm.
  • Mushroom description: One or two campanulate mushrooms, perhaps Psathyrella
  • Location: Schlossmuseum, Schloss Friedenstein. Gotha, Germany
  • Web: Bridgeman Art Gallery
 

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