Still Life with Fruit and Flower Garlands by Jacob van Campen
Tucked into the corner of a 375-year-old Dutch still life is a single cashew nut. Still Life with Fruit and Flower Garlands by Jacob van Campen, painted around 1650, hangs at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam.
Look past the woven basket with its black and white chevron rim. Past the passion flower, intricate and strange. There it is, easy to scroll past: a pale cashew nut resting among the fruit.
In the 1650s, Haarlem was a hub of the Dutch Golden Age. Van Campen, born in the city in 1596, painted this still life as Dutch ships returned from Brazil, the East Indies, and beyond, carrying goods no European kitchen had seen before. The painting entered the Rijksmuseum as part of its Dutch Golden Age collection.
A single cashew nut does not announce itself. But it tells you more about this painting than the grapes ever will. What else is hiding in plain sight?
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Transcript
In 1650, a Haarlem painter set a basket overflowing. Woven reed, a black and white chevron around the rim. A passion flower, intricate and strange. And a cashew nut, from the far reaches of Dutch trade.