Still Life with Meat, Fish, Vegetables, and Fruit (c. 1615–20): Art, History and Details

Still Life with Meat, Fish, Vegetables, and Fruit (c. 1615–20) is in the Cleveland Museum of Art collection. The museum's creator attribution is Jacob van Hulsdonck (Flemish, 1582–1647).

The work and its context

The museum's open-access catalogue describes the work:

Jacob van Hulsdonck depicted a colorful array of foods, and tablewares ranging from an earthenware trencher to delicate Chinese porcelain—an expensive luxury made possible by international trade. For seventeenth-century viewers, the quantity and variety of foods would have represented a utopian world without scarcity or hunger. Partially eaten food and an overturned glass suggest that diners have just departed, leaving insects to explore the remains.

Object facts

• Title: Still Life with Meat, Fish, Vegetables, and Fruit
• Date: c. 1615–20
• Creator attribution: Jacob van Hulsdonck (Flemish, 1582–1647)
• Culture: Flanders
• Type: Painting
• Technique: Oil on panel, the reverse prepared with gesso
• Dimensions: 71.5 x 104 cm (28 1/8 x 40 15/16 in.)
• Collection: P - Netherlandish-Flemish
• Department: European Painting and Sculpture
• Accession number: 2018.258

A detail from the museum

Hulsdonck thoughtfully included condiments here: butter, lemon, parsley for the trotters, and a dab of mustard for the ham.

Collection credit

Gift of Janice Hammond and Edward Hemmelgarn

Further reading listed by the museum

• Frimmel, Theodor von. Lexikon der Wiener Gemäldesammlungen. vol. 1. München: G. Müller, 1913.
• P. Mason, in Dutch and Flemish Old Master Paintings (London: Johnny Van Haeften, 2013), n.p.
• Slow Food: Dutch and Flemish Meal Still Lifes, 1600-1640. Mauritshuis, The Hague (March 9 - May 25, 2017). Catalogue by Quentin Buvelot, Yvonne Bleyerveld, Milou Goverde, Zoran Kwak, Anne Lenders, Fred G. Meijer, and Charlotte Rulkens.

View the collection record

See the museum's photographs and full catalogue entry. Catalogue text is reproduced from the Cleveland Museum of Art's open-access data, with HTML formatting removed. This object and its supplied image are designated CC0.