1858
unspecified
From the collection of Cleveland Museum of Art
Still Life with Pipe and Matches and Still Life with Herring, Bread, and Cheese (pair) is a 1858 unspecified by Alexandre Gabriel Decamps, a Impressionism work, held at Cleveland Museum of Art.
You see two small tables side by side. One holds a fancy pipe, matches, and a folded newspaper. The other has a herring on a plate, a chunk of bread, and a wedge of cheese. Decamps painted these objects with such care you can almost smell the tobacco and salt. The pipe isn’t just a pipe—it’s made of rare materials like meerschaum (a soft white mineral) and silver, with a cord to keep it from breaking. The herring looks simple, but the light makes its scales glisten. If you like how Decamps makes everyday things feel special, look up *chiaroscuro*.
The artist was a smoker. In this composition the place of honor is given to a pipe made in Austria around the middle of the 19th century. It is made of precious materials—meerschaum, silver, amber, horn or lacquered wood—that are carefully fashioned, all lovingly rendered by the artist. The cord with a tassel (perhaps of horsehair) is not just a decorative element, it is a security measure in case the precious bowl of the pipe becomes detached from the pipe stem. The pipe is surrounded by ordinary smoker's accessories—a cigar case, a snuffbox, and a match holder in porcelain—all placed on a…
Read the full account in the museum source.
Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps was a French painter noted for his Orientalist works.
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