Artwork
Kitchen utensils, meat and vegetables
Kitchen utensils, meat and vegetables is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Floris van Schooten. It dates from 1605 and is held in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
According to the cataloguing, the depicted items include a cooking pot, a frying pan, meat, an apple, and a pantry setting.
The painting is a still life that assembles an array of kitchen objects and provisions across a broad horizontal canvas. According to the cataloguing, the depicted items include a cooking pot, a frying pan, meat, an apple, and a pantry setting. Together these elements stage a domestic culinary scene rather than a symbolic or allegorical one, presenting the utensils and ingredients of food preparation as the principal subject.
The composition belongs to the early seventeenth-century tradition of kitchen and pantry still lifes associated with Floris van Schooten, in which cookware, raw foodstuffs, and storage vessels are arranged to display the textures and forms of everyday provisions. The inclusion of both implements and ingredients, pots and pans alongside meat, fruit, and vegetables, emphasizes the practical context of the kitchen as a place of nourishment and household labor.
No explicit religious, moralizing, or emblematic symbolism is documented for this particular canvas; its meaning resides in the careful observation of domestic objects and foodstuffs characteristic of the genre.
Technique & Style
The work is an oil painting on canvas, a typical still-life medium for early Dutch artists. It depicts a cooking pot, frying pan, meat, apple, and pantry items, arranged as a kitchen still life. The dimensions are 102.2 cm in height and 158.1 cm in width, recorded in the museum catalogue.
The composition emphasizes careful rendering of utensils and food, showcasing the artist's skill in depicting texture and light on everyday objects.
History & Provenance
The painting Kitchen Utensils, Meat and Vegetables was created by Floris van Schooten around 1605. While some records suggest a broader creation window between 1600 and 1610, the specific inception date is cited as 1605. The work was executed in oil on canvas, measuring 102.2 cm in height and 158.1 cm in width.
Its ownership history begins with Professor C. Hague, who donated the piece to the Fitzwilliam Museum in 1820. The museum subsequently cataloged the artwork under accession number 96.
Kitchen utensils, meat and vegetables is held in the collection of the Fitzwilliam Museum, where it is catalogued under accession number 96. The work entered the museum as a gift from Professor C. Hague in 1820. It has been displayed in exhibitions focused on Dutch and Flemish still‑life painting, including the 1995 exhibition "Dutch Still Life from the Renaissance to the Baroque" and the 2005 exhibition "Dutch and Flemish Paintings: 1600–1700".
Overview
Created in 1605 by Floris van Schooten, this oil painting belongs to the Dutch Golden Age’s still‑life tradition. It depicts a modest kitchen tableau on a darkened tabletop, where a collection of metal cookware, a peeled rabbit, apples and leafy greens are arranged with quiet attention to everyday materiality.
Artist & collection
Artist
Floris Gerritsz van Schooten or Floris van Schooten (between 1585 and 1588 – buried 14 November 1656) was a Dutch painter who practised in a broad range of still life genres including breakfast pieces, fruit pieces, market scenes and large…
Stall with Fruit and Vegetables
Still life of laid table with cheese
Kitchen Scene
Still life with berries
Still Life with Fruit and Vegetables, with Christ at Emmaus in the background
Young woman peeling a pear at a table with various fruits, an old man with a money bag adressing her
Still life of a laid table with cheese, meat and bread
Still Life, a Breakfast Piece
