Pieter Claesz, Dutch, c.1597/98-1660/61
Title: A Breakfast-piece
Date: 1637
Medium: Oil on wood panel
Dimensions:
40.3 x 58 cm
Signed: lower right: PC 1637 [PC in monogram]
Credit Line: Purchased, 1893
Object Number: NGI.326
DescriptionOn a table laid with a green tablecloth lie a pewter plate with slices of lemon, a knife, a beaker, a Berkemeyer glass on its side, a bread roll, two oysters, a second pewter plate and some vine leaves. These items allowed the painter to show off his virtuosity in rendering different materials and textures. Claesz’s painting is a typical ontbytje (breakfast-piece), a type of still life consisting of food items and tableware that was one of the artist’s specialisations during the first half of his career. They generally have simple but powerful diagonal compositions and are monochrome in colour, reflecting contemporary developments in landscape painting. Many of Claesz’s breakfast-pieces resemble those of his Haarlem colleague Willem Claesz Heda in composition and colouring. Even though Claesz’s still lifes look plausible, they are difficult to recreate with actual objects. He evidently used some artistic licence. Claesz signed this and most of his other paintings PC. As the Antwerp still-life painter Clara Peters used the same monogram, the attribution of several of their works have been disputed.
March 2016
March 2016
Exhibition HistoryCentenary Exhibition, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, October - December 1964
Label TextOn a table covered with a green cloth lie a pewter plate with pieces of lemon, a knife, a beaker, a Berkemeyer glass that has fallen over, a bread roll, two oysters, another pewter plate and some vine leaves. These items allowed the painter to show off his virtuosity in rendering different materials and textures. Claesz’s painting is a typical ontbytje (breakfast-piece), a type of still life with edible items and tableware that was one of the artist’s specialisations during the first half of his career. They generally have simple but powerful diagonal compositions and are monochrome in colour.