Exhibition
Slow Food: Still Lifes of the Golden Age
Mauritshuis, The Hague
9 March – 25 June 2017
Exhibition Design Archetypisch, Amsterdam
Graphic Design Kathrin Hero, Amsterdam
Photos Ivo Hoekstra
Construction Fiction Factory, Amsterdam
Lighting Advisor Hans Wol & Partners, Amsterdam
Texts Liesbeth van Noortwijk, Rotterdam
English Translation Marije Matthew, Londen
Print Exhibition Rijnja, Amsterdam
Print Guides Pantheon drukkers, Velsen-Noord
Exhibition guide
About the exhibition
“Artists in Holland and Flanders introduced a new specialism in painting around 1600. They painted laid tables adorned with appetising delicacies: cheese, fruit, oysters and olives; wine in gleaming glasses; expensive Chinese porcelain. In the seventeenth century, these paintings were called ‘banketjes’ or ‘ontbijtjes’ (banquet or breakfast pieces). We call them meal still lifes.
This is the first exhibition to trace the development of the meal still life between 1600 and 1640. Antwerp and Haarlem were the centres where paint- ers mutually in uenced one another. One of the pioneers of the genre was the Antwerp artist Clara Peeters. The Mauritshuis acquired a still life by her in 2012, and her work plays a key role in the exhibition.
The paintings in Slow Food were made with great attention to detail. Did they contain a message about the relativity of wealth and pleasure for seven- teenth-century art lovers? Perhaps. But it seems these paintings were intended above all to be enjoyed, much as you enjoy a good meal: by taking your time.”
[excerpt from the exhibition guide]