Still Life with Meat, Fish, Vegetables, and Fruit

c. 1615–20

Medium

Oil on panel, the reverse prepared with gesso

Dimensions

71.5 × 104 cm

Status

In Museum Collection

Collect24 Art ID

C24-109904

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.