Still Life with Vegetables, Partridge, and a Jug
1858
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
About the artist
Artist
Adolphe-Félix Cals
Adolphe-Félix Cals (1810–1880) was an artist, born in Paris.
See the richer artist page1858
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Still Life with Vegetables, Partridge, and a Jug is a 1858 unspecified by Adolphe-Félix Cals, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see a dead partridge, onions, cabbage, and a clay jug on a wooden table. Most still lifes back then showed fancy silver or rare fruit. Cals painted everyday food—what a middle-class French family might actually eat. The partridge and cabbage are the exact ingredients for *perdrix au chou*, a simple country dish. If you like this quiet realism, look up the subject france, 19th century, mod euro.
During the 19th century, a number of painters used common objects (rather than rare or refined objects) to create still lifes that some critics judged as unfit for the drawing room: studies of carrots, cabbages, asparagus, oysters, onions, eggs, and cooking utensils. Often these subjects were chosen for their mealtime associations. The food represented on the table in this painting—a partridge, onions, and cabbage—are the main ingredients for the well-known dish perdrix au chou (partridge with cabbage). Cals, however, was also interested in exploring underlying compositional design principles…
In this painting, Cals even includes the metal pitcher that holds the liquid in which the perdrix au chou (partridge with cabbage) will be cooked.
Read the full account in the museum source.
Adolphe-Félix Cals (1810–1880) was an artist, born in Paris.
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