Still Life

Georg Flegel German

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 617

Born in Moravia, Flegel trained under a Flemish artist before settling in the mercantile hub of Frankfurt, where he specialized in still-life paintings of meals. Here, he presents the viewer with an enticing array of food and drink on a linen tablecloth. The juxtaposition of the small bird’s carcass on the plate with the living bird on the loaf of bread adds a note of macabre humor to the scene. Such tensions between life and death frequently characterize still-life painting.

Still Life, Georg Flegel (German, Olomouc (Olmütz) 1566–1638 Frankfurt), Oil on wood

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