Max Weber American, 1881-1961

The Blue Labeled Bottle (1917-18) is a testament to Weber's unwavering commitment to still-life painting and evidences his discerning eye for objects of significance in his environment. The painterly detail bestowed on these objects and the deliberate spacing around them form a portrait of the depicted items. At the right of the composition, Weber incorporated an Egyptian black-topped redware jar, a type of pottery discovered in the Nubian region along the Nile River. Through his still life practice, Weber placed profound emphasis on quotidian objects, both contemporary and historical, asserting, "Through things we ever establish new relationships between ourselves and the principles that underlie things. The simplest object may have embodied in it the finest degree of excellence." (Max Weber, Essays on Art, New York: William Edwin Rudge, 1916, p. 35).