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Kitchen Interior

Egbert van der Poel

Basic information

ID: Ж-809
Author: Egbert van der Poel
Name: Kitchen Interior
Technique: oil painting
Material: wood oil
Dimensions (height x width, cm): 39 x 50

Additionally

Type: painting
Genre: genre art
Provenance: Collection of Lviv City Gallery
Exposition: Potocki Palace

Information about author

Author: Egbert van der Poel
Artist's lifetime: 1621–1664
Country: Holland
Biography: Egbert van der Poel (1621–1664) was a Dutch painter. Little information about the artist has been preserved: he was born into a jeweller's family and received training in painting from Esaias van de Velde and Aert van der Neer. In the Guild of Saint Luke records (1650), Poel is mentioned as a landscape painter. He was married, had three daughters and a son. Egbert van der Poel passed away at the age of 43. The artist depicted rural courtyards, landscapes, and genre scenes in his early works. The 1654 gunpowder explosion in Delft influenced all of Poel's later art. About twenty of his works depicting this event have been preserved. He was considered the best artist to portray fire.

Object description

Dark in colouration and maintained in a single colour scheme, the work "Kitchen Interior" depicts a simple Dutch person's typical home and daily life. In the background, a new day is just dawning outside the window – warm, sunlit hues of pink illuminate the sky. To the right of the window, in the depths of the painting, a woman is bent over doing laundry. On the shelf beneath the window are a silver teapot and a plate, possibly for fruit, a woven basket for groceries, and among the kitchen utensils, the attention is drawn to the polished copperware: a cauldron, a jug, and bowls. In the centre, a woman is depicted at the table – dressed in typical simple brown clothing, with her head covered by a white cap, skillfully filleting fish with her hands. She exudes a sense of calm and balance. The woman is engaged in daily work that is useful and necessary and often goes unnoticed. Casually thrown white clothes distract from the harsh realities of 17th-century life. The liberation of the seven provinces from the Spanish monarch's rule contributed to the Dutch Republic's economic rise. The tastes of the burghers, who became the driving force behind this progress, were catered to by an art characterised by its particular democracy. Artists turned to everyday life and leisure themes, depicting moments frozen in time, capturing both domestic scenes and actions occurring in that instant. Domestic realist painting, still lifes, and landscapes became exceptionally popular in the works of Dutch artists of that time.

Legal regulation

Borys Voznytskyi Lviv National Art Gallery

Kitchen Interior

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