Though this painting certainly belongs to the tradition of kitchen scene's of Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer, there are some important differences. First, Bloemaert did not paint a religious scene in the background, and second, he did not paint raw meat. The moralizing or erotic nature of kitchen scene's has often been pointed out. Despite the lack of a religious element, the cook, as a corpulent ‘life-giver’, might still provide a deeper, more vulgar meaning to the painting. However, it is quite unlikely that a genre painting such as this one would belong to such a moralizing tradition. A cook stands in front of a wooden counter, holding a spit with a roast chicken. On the left, we can see part of the fireplace, while on the right two unplucked birds hang from the ceiling. According to a cookbook published in 1683, chicken was the tastiest of all poultry. When roasted it was ‘extremely tender and easy to digest, whether with rice or otherwise’.
Title
De kok
Artist
Hendrick Bloemaert (Utrecht ca. 1601 - 1672 Utrecht)
Dating
1634
Material and technique
Object number
5461
Object type
Acquisition
schenking 1926
Dimensions
hoogte 114.8 cm
breedte 90 cm
hoogte (met lijst) 137.2 cm
breedte (met lijst) 112 cm
Inscriptions and markings
- signatuur en datering l.b. (met verf): [resten van een signatuur].1634.
More of the same motive
Documentation
- Kroniek van Nederland, [idee Bodo Harenberg; tekst Aarts Aarsbergen, René van Beek, Jos Beelen ... et al.] (Amsterdam, 1987), p. 469, met afb.
Exhibitions
- De gezonde stad, Centraal Museum
- De kunst van het lachen - Humor in de Gouden Eeuw, Frans Hals Museum
- Utrechters dromen van Rome, Centraal Museum
- Hoorn des overvloeds: zeven eeuwen eten en drinken in de kunst, Rijksmuseum Twenthe
- Utrechts Gouden Eeuw. Caravaggisten en Italianisanten uit Nederlands bezit, Centraal Museum
- Mestres do Século de Ouro na pintura holandesa, Pinacoteca do Estado
- Dutch Masters from the Golden Age, Museo National de Bellas Artes
- Het Huis van Bloemaert, Centraal Museum
- Nederlandse meesterwerken uit de Gouden Eeuw, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (Barcelona)
- Nederlandse meesterwerken uit de Gouden Eeuw, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (Bilbao)
- Nederlandse meesterwerken uit de Gouden Eeuw, Banco Bilbao Vizcaya (Madrid)
- Tentoonstelling van schilderijen der Utrechtsche School, Centraal Museum
Persistent url
To refer to this object please use the following persistent URL: https://hdl.handle.net/21.12130/collect.65CF881B-F6A6-4081-B037-AA74C90AA185
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