Document: Kitchen Scene, Peter Wtewael, Dutch 1620s

The rich clothing of a kitchen maid and errand boy in the Netherlands is likely a contrast with life in New Netherland.   This Kitchen scene showing such abundance and wealth along with humorous inferences helps to illustrate what immigrants to the New Netherland colony were leaving behind.

Met Summary: Typical of Dutch genre paintings from the first half of the seventeenth century, Wtewael’s kitchen scene abounds in visual jokes of a frankly erotic nature, such as the prominent display of meat on a skewer. The grins of housemaid and errand boy indicate their enjoyment of one another’s company, while the lavishly depicted foodstuffs surrounding them allude to the pleasures of the flesh. Such combinations of risqué humor with abundant still-life elements had deep roots in Netherlandish painting.