The table is set, and the food is served: Crispy rolls, fresh oysters, salted fish, and luscious pies beckon to the viewers, practically inviting them to begin the meal. Pieter Claesz (1597/98–1660) was the leading painter of such pleasurable moments in the Dutch Baroque. Born in Flanders and later active in Haarlem, the artist is considered the most innovative representative of the genre of the monochrome banketje. These banquet still lifes, with their muted colors, made Claesz famous and became his trademark. The surfaces and materials of the fabrics, porcelain, and food such as the artfully cut lemon are painted in such a sophisticated way that their lifelike and deceptively real details tempt viewers to touch them.

The Kunst Museum Winterthur presents At Pieter Claesz’s Table, a concise one-room exhibition, in cooperation with the Kaiserschild Stiftung, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, and the Alte Galerie of the Universalmuseum Joanneum in Graz. The show focuses on exquisite still lifes that tell of the eating habits and living conditions of the emerging bourgeoisie in the Golden Age of Dutch Painting. However, the paintings are not only about beauty, splendor, and pleasures; they also convey moralistic messages. They tell of the transience of food and of life; in vanitas still lifes in particular, the fleetingness and the finiteness of all earthly life is manifested.

The exhibition also includes high-resolution digital scans of three still lifes by Claesz, which were created in the project Kaiserschild Art Defined and specially prepared for art education. A multimedia table enables visitors to interactively explore the works. Short films in the presentation also offer interesting insight into the genre of still life and the artist’s life and work. 

Curated by Andrea Lutz