Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels (1615) - Clara Peeters

Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels is a painting by the Flemish artist Clara Peeters, dated 1615. It is a still life, painted in oil on a wooden panel. The painting belongs to the Flemish Baroque period. This painting wasn’t commissioned to showcase to everyone.

As a genre painting produced for the flourishing open art market, rather than a specific commission, it was intended for the collections of wealthy private patrons and the emerging merchant class who were driving the economic boom of the period. Such collectors often used these paintings as part of their home interior decor, displaying them as symbols of prosperity, cultured taste, and social status.

At present, the painting is displayed in the Mauritshuis museum in The Hague.

Note: Flemish Baroque was different from the Italian Baroque.

For two centuries prior, still life elements had been relegated to subordinate roles, such as backgrounds in religious or genre paintings. Historically, still life elements required the presence of human figures or a narrative to provide meaning and purpose. Peeters’ output, dating between 1607 and 1621, places her precisely at the juncture when this genre achieved its autonomy that does not require justification beyond itself. Peeters helped liberate the genre, producing independent works that were marketed successfully on the burgeoning open market in Antwerp. Clara Peeters stands out as the only Flemish woman known to have specialized in the still life genre as early as the first decade of the 17th century.

The painting has a combination of common, local staples (cheese, bread) and expensive, imported items (Wanli porcelain, gilded glass). Different items on the table are from different parts of the world. This is an indication of overflowing wealth. They are showing that they can get all these items from different parts of the world. They have the means to do so.

The items include three types of cheese (including one with an inspection hole), butter curls, pretzels, almonds, dried figs, a bread roll, an expensive Chinese Wanli porcelain dish, a gilded Venetian glass, and a silver bridal knife engraved with Peeters's name.

The visual dominance of the painting is asserted by the large wheels of cheese, stacked vertically and horizontally, one of which appears cut open. These staple goods, along with the pretzels, bread, and curls of butter, celebrate local prosperity.

Contrasting the local staples are elements of international trade and luxury, signifying the wealth generated by the Low Countries’ commercial success. These include a gilded Venetian glass, an object of high fragility and cost, and a plate holding almonds and figs, made of fine Chinese Wanli porcelain. The inclusion of exotic and valuable commodities alongside local fare effectively positions the owner of the painting within the emerging international merchant class.

The meticulous, illusionistic realism and the contrast of light on different textures (the crumbly cheese, the shiny metal, the translucent glass) serve to magnify the opulence of the arrangement, reflecting the wealth and international trade of the Low Countries. Realism has been emphasized with textures.

The juxtaposition of everyday food (cheese, bread) with luxury imports (Chinese dish, figs, gilded glass) symbolizes prosperity. However, details like the chipped tabletop and the test hole in the cheese, combined with the allegorical figures of Faith and Temperance on the knife, introduce a moralizing and vanitas (transience of earthly things) theme, warning against excess and the fleeting nature of wealth.

The vanitas theme in art refers to a genre of symbolic works, particularly still life paintings, that highlight the transience of life, the futility of earthly pleasures, and the inescapability of death. Common symbols include skulls, wilting flowers, timepieces, burnt-down candles, and rotting fruit, all meant to remind viewers of mortality and the temporary nature of material wealth and beauty.

The knife handle extends out of the frame toward the viewer, acting as an invitation to participate in the scene and breaking the picture plane. The scene is dynamic. We can sense human presence. It feels that someone has just used the knife because of the placement of knife on the table.

Overlapping forms are making it look realistic. The viewer feels that they have walked into the scene.

To make the painting even more realistic, Clara Peeters focused on the messiness of the picture. The items are disorganized on the table. The scene feels that we are in the middle of something.

Cheese inspectors used to take a small piece from the cheese to test the quality of the cheese and then put it back into the cheese. She is showing that in the painting with the test hole on the cheese (Indentation from the Cheese Inspector’s Plug).

The image has a very busy composition and reflective surfaces.

Peeters used two methods to assert her artistic selfhood. Firstly, she inscribed her full name on the side of the silver knife in the foreground. Secondly, she included a tiny, reflected image of herself (a woman in a white cap) in the shiny surface of the pewter lid of the earthenware jug.