Artwork
Still life with cheese, artichoke and cherries
Still life with cheese, artichoke and cherries is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Clara Peeters. It dates from 1625 and is held in the collection of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. Created in 1625, this oil painting presents a meticulously arranged banquet of everyday Dutch fare.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
The artist includes a silver salt cellar and a Wanli-period Chinese dish holding striated butter, emphasizing contrasts in texture and color.
This horizontal oil painting depicts a breakfast still life arranged on a dark ground. The composition centers on an artichoke, eight cherries, bread, three cheeses, and butter. The artist includes a silver salt cellar and a Wanli-period Chinese dish holding striated butter, emphasizing contrasts in texture and color.
One cherry stone appears gnawed, suggesting recent human presence, while the cut surfaces of the artichoke reveal vivid carmine hues and spines around its heart.
The foods depicted, artichoke, imported cheeses, cherries, and salt, were luxury items in early seventeenth-century Flanders, accessible primarily to affluent households. Such still lifes of breakfast foods were a specialty in Haarlem, signaling prosperity and the display of varied, even exotic, provisions. The inclusion of the artichoke, which became widely available in the Netherlands only after 1621, situates the work within the 1620s, aligning with Peeters’s mature period and her engagement with contemporaries such as Pieter Claesz.
Technique & Style
The work is executed in oil on a wooden panel, with horizontal dimensions of approximately 46.7 × 33.3 cm. The composition is set against a dark background, lending austerity and compactness to the arrangement. Peeters organizes the breakfast still life following early seventeenth-century conventions: the three cheeses are stacked to emphasize their differences in color, texture, and shape, while a Wanli-period Chinese dish crowns the pile, holding butter whose soft, striated surface contrasts with the dry texture of the cheese. A silver-plated salt cellar bears engraved decorations fashionable in the 1620s.
The handling includes carefully observed details such as a gnawed cherry stone, suggesting the food has already been tasted, and a halved artichoke displayed to reveal the crimson hue of its inner leaves and spines. Beneath the cheeses rests what appears to be a round rye roll.
Stylistically, the painting's austerity and compactness align it with the Haarlem still-life milieu of the mid-1620s, particularly the circle of Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz, rather than with Peeters's earlier dated works from 1608 to 1612.
History & Provenance
Still life with cheese, artichoke and cherries is an oil painting on panel created around 1625 by Flemish artist Clara Peeters. The work entered the collection of Edward W. Carter and Hannah Locke Carter, later passing to Johanna Goekoop-de Jongh before being donated to the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it remains on display. The painting has been part of the museum's Carter Collection since at least 2003, when it was received as a gift.
Its provenance reflects a clear ownership chain from the Carters to Goekoop-de Jongh and finally to the museum, establishing its modern custodial history. The work is catalogued in the museum's records as part of the Edward W. Carter and Hannah Locke Carter Collection, confirming its institutional ownership and display location.
Still life with cheese, artichoke and cherries is held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, where it is accessioned as part of the Edward W. Carter and Hannah Locke Carter Collection. The work entered the museum’s holdings in 2003 as a donation from the Carter family. It has been exhibited in museum presentations that highlight Dutch Golden Age painting, including displays focused on Flemish still-life traditions. No further exhibition records are documented in the provided sources.
Context
Clara Peeters’ Still life with cheese, artichoke and cherries occupies a distinctive position within Dutch Baroque still‑life painting. The work combines meticulous rendering of everyday food items with a symbolic arrangement that suggests both abundance and transience. Scholars emphasize its role in bridging the earlier Haarlem breakfast traditions of Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz with the later, more opulent compositions of the 1620s.
The painting’s depiction of imported ingredients such as the artichoke and Gouda cheese reflects the expanding trade networks of the Dutch Republic, while its compositional austerity aligns with the tonal restraint seen in contemporaneous works. Its presence in the Edward W. Carter and Hannah Locke Carter Collection at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art underscores the painting’s significance as a representative example of Flemish still‑life that traveled to the United States in the early twentieth century.
Overview
Created in 1625, this oil painting presents a meticulously arranged banquet of everyday Dutch fare. A wedge of cheese with a dark rind sits beside a lighter, crumbly block, while an opened artichoke rests on a plate surrounded by glossy red cherries. Bread, butter, a half‑eaten roll, and a small salt jar complete the composition, all set against a deep, shadowy background that heightens the vivid hues.
Artist & collection
Artist
Clara Peeters (Dutch pronunciation: ; fl. 1607–1676) was a Flemish still-life painter from Antwerp who worked in both the Spanish Netherlands and Dutch Republic. Peeters is the best-known female Flemish artist of this…
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