Still Life with Lobster and Fruit

Abraham van Beyeren

probably early 1650s · Oil on wood · European Paintings

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. This painting was seized by the Nazis from Baron Karl Neuman (Charles Neuman de Végvár) in Paris and restituted to him by 1947.

Artist

Abraham van Beyeren

Date

probably early 1650s

Medium

Oil on wood

Department

European Paintings

Credit line

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