Still Life
Pieter Claesz (Dutch, 1596/97–1660)
c. 1625
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 48 × 76.9 cm (18 7/8 × 30 1/4 in.); Framed: 76.2 × 108.8 × 7 cm (30 × 41 1/4 × 2 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Simeon B. Williams Fund
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
Around 1600, as the Dutch economy boomed, large-scale still lifes depicting luxury goods emerged as a genre that appealed to a sophisticated clientele. Pieter Claesz. was a leading painter of a type of still life often described as a “banquet piece,” which featured sumptuous foods and opulent serving vessels, typically strewn across an elaborately dressed tabletop. These costly goods—like the lemon, olives, sweetmeats, and lace-edged damask tablecloth in this painting—were sometimes depicted in a state of decay to suggest the transitory nature of coveted earthly things. The well-preserved items here instead celebrate wealth and its lavish display.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
