1854-1907
In the Library, 1900
Oil on canvas
30 x 40 in

Peto received his training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, where he also exhibited his work from 1879 to 1887 and became friends with William Michael Harnett, a painter of illusory still lifes. Following a move to Island Heights, New Jersey in 1889, Peto ceased to exhibit and ultimately was forgotten.

In the early 1950s, UC Berkeley professor and San Francisco Chronicle art critic Alfred Frankenstein researching Harnett came to the realization that many of the works then attributed to the very popular and high-priced Harnett were in fact by another hand - a heretofore unrecognized artist named John Frederick Peto.