A Feast for the Eyes? Dutch Still-Life Painting in Detail

22.9.2022-19.2.2023

Dutch Still Lives are masterpieces of painting. Created in the 17th Century, they are able to fascinate with depictions of sparkling glasses and finest porcelain, with exotic fruits, flowers and butterflies but also with images of common food like cheese and herring – the eye can lustfully roam and thus trace countless details.

You are invited not only to admire the painterly perfection of the Still Lives, but also to discover the stories behind the carefully staged objects: Twelve cabinets take you right into the heart of the 17th century Netherlands - a surprisingly modern country where trading companies developed into global players, ships were built in series and telescopes as well as microscopes were developed.

Growing cities, civic prosperity and a booming culture created the image of a "Golden Age of the Netherlands". But looking closer, the Still Lives’ often exuberant luxurious arrangements reveal the dark side of the ever-growing economical and technical boom. They point to hard work and poverty, to slavery and colonial exploitation.

Exhibition organised by the LVR-LandesMuseum in cooperation with the Allard Pierson Museum, the and Prof. Dr. Birgit Münch (Department for Art History, University Bonn)