Jefferson David Chalfant

Jefferson David Chalfant (November 6, 1856 – February 3, 1931) was an American painter who is remembered mostly for his trompe-l'œil still life paintings.

[1] Chalfant was born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, but moved in young adulthood to Wilmington, Delaware, where he would spend the rest of his life.

Employed by a commercial firm as a painter of parlor car interiors, he began his activity as a fine artist in the early 1880s.

[3] His still lifes are painted in the illusionistic trompe-l'œil (literally, "fool the eye") manner popularized in the late nineteenth century by William Michael Harnett.

A 2022 exhibition at the MET[6] draws comparisons between the work of Chalfant, Harnet (as well as European trompe-l'œil painters such as Samuel van Hoogstraten, Cornelius Norbertus Gijsbrechts, Jean Etienne Liotard, and Luis Meléndez) and the work of Georges Braque, Juan Gris, and Pablo Picasso.