Still Life with Lobster and Fruit by Van Beyeren in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, February 2019

Still Life with Lobster and Fruit
probably early 1650s


Object Details

Artist: Abraham van Beyeren (Dutch, The Hague 1620/21–1690 Overschie)

Date: probably early 1650s

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 38 x 31 in. (96.5 x 78.7 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Gift of Edith Neuman de Végvár, in honor of her husband, Charles Neuman de Végvár, 1971

Accession Number: 1971.254



Brilliant surfaces of metalwork and glass reflect lush fruits and a lobster in this still life. Heavily laden tables like this one, boasting both foodstuffs and imported luxuries such as the blue-and-white porcelain bowl from China, typify Dutch still life in the second half of the seventeenth century. Such paintings represent a shift away from the reminders of immortality and vanity in earlier still lifes and toward a wholehearted embrace of earthly pleasures.

Text from: www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/435663