Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels

by Clara Peeters (1594-1657)

About this artwork

A masterful breakfast piece featuring an array of cheeses, nuts, and pretzels arranged with deceptive casualness. Peeters demonstrates extraordinary technical skill in rendering different textures—the smooth wax coating of cheeses, the crumbly pretzels, the gleaming pewter plates. Multiple tiny self-portrait reflections appear in the metal surfaces, a signature element of Peeters's work that subtly asserts her authorship. As one of the pioneering women still life painters, Peeters helped establish conventions of the breakfast piece genre. Her meticulous realism and sophisticated compositions influenced the development of Dutch Golden Age still life painting.