"Bold and innovative, Nika Elder’s book does not only challenge how historians of American art think about the motivations for and meanings of still-life painting. It also changes our understanding of the relationship between fine art, social politics, and popular culture in the immediate wake of the US Civil War.”—Tanya Sheehan, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Art, Colby College
"In Nika Elder’s absorbing account, the great American still-life painter William Harnett grasped at objects like a drowning man at whatever floats nearby. In the wake of the Civil War, an artist wrongly characterized as a con man set out on a mission to find enduring human values. If it proved impossible, his clear-eyed investigation of last moments is all the more grave and impressive. Harnett’s failure is Elder’s triumph."—Alexander Nemerov, Carl and Marilynn Thoma Provostial Professor in the Arts and Humanities, Stanford University