Artwork
Winter still life with pancakes, waffles and Christmas bread
Winter still life with pancakes, waffles and Christmas bread is an oil painting by the Flemish Baroque painting artist Hans Francken. It dates from 1600 and is held in the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
Hans Francken's Winter still life with pancakes, waffles and Christmas bread is a still life depicting an arrangement of festive foods and tableware.
Hans Francken's Winter still life with pancakes, waffles and Christmas bread is a still life depicting an arrangement of festive foods and tableware. The composition centers on pancakes, waffles, and Christmas bread, accompanied by a rummer and its goblet holder, with an additional confection completing the spread. The pairing of seasonal baked goods with fine glassware situates the work within the tradition of winter and holiday still life painting, in which everyday nourishment is elevated into a meditation on abundance, hospitality, and the rituals of the Christmas season.
Technique & Style
The work is executed in oil paint on panel, a support typical of early seventeenth-century Netherlandish still life production. Its modest scale, 58 cm in height by 70 cm in width, suits an intimate domestic subject rather than a large decorative commission. The composition is classified as a still life, a genre in which the Francken workshop was active, and the painted objects are arranged to display a variety of foodstuffs and tableware, including pancakes, waffles, a rummer, a goblet holder, and confection.
The handling of the medium is consistent with the small-panel oil technique used by Hans Francken and his circle, in which fine brushwork renders the textures of baked goods, glassware, and metal mounts against a darkened ground.
No condition report is recorded in the available sources, so the present state of the panel and paint surface cannot be specified.
History & Provenance
Winter still life with pancakes, waffles and Christmas bread is an oil painting on panel attributed to Hans Francken or Hieronymous Francken II, created in 1600. The work entered the collection of the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium, where it remains on view.
The painting was executed on a wooden panel measuring 58 by 70 centimeters and depicts a festive spread of pancakes, waffles, and Christmas bread alongside kitchenware such as a rummer and goblet holder. Its creation reflects the early Baroque still-life tradition in the Southern Netherlands.
The attribution to either Hans Francken or his son Hieronymous Francken II is based on stylistic analysis and archival documentation within the museum's records. The work was likely commissioned for domestic display, consistent with other private devotional pieces from the period.
The painting is held by the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in Brussels, where it is inventoried as part of the national collection.
It was exhibited at the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium in 1985 as part of the display “De Stillevenkunst in de Nederlanden/La nature morte dans les Pays-Bas.”
Overview
Hans Francken’s oil painting, dated to around 1600, presents a winter still‑life composition that gathers an abundance of festive foods on a darkened tabletop. The work features a stack of golden pancakes, a waffle iron displaying crisp squares, a basket of round breads wrapped in cloth, and assorted fruit, nuts, and a metal goblet holder. Warm reds, browns and yellows dominate, set against a deep background that emphasizes the richness of the fare.
Artist & collection
Museum
Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium
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