A Kitchen

Artist: Hendrick Sorgh (Dutch, Rotterdam 1609/11–1670 Rotterdam)

Date: ca. 1643

Medium: Oil on wood

Dimensions: 20 1/2 x 17 3/8 in. (52.1 x 44.1 cm)

Classification: Paintings

Credit Line: Marquand Collection, Gift of Henry G. Marquand, 1889

Accession Number: 89.15.7

Description


In this painting, Sorgh inflects a domestic scene with the art of still life. Two maids clean fish and peel vegetables in the foreground, surrounded by gleaming brass and earthenware. A closer look reveals a mischievous cat, an open birdcage, and, barely visible between the two servants, a couple caressing in the shadows. Even such seemingly innocuous elements as the earthenware pots would have carried an erotic connotation for seventeenth-century viewers.

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