Still Life
c. 1625
Medium
Oil on panel
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.)
Classification
oil on panel
Department
Painting and Sculpture of Europe
Museum
Art Institute of Chicago
Accession Number
21682
Rights
Public Domain
About this artwork
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 ...