Attributed to Hendrick Maertensz Sorgh

Attributed to HENDRICK MAERTENSZ SORGH (Rotterdam, Netherlands, ca. 1610 - 1670).
"Pantry."
Oil on canvas.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 39,5 x 48 cm.

In this canvas we see a wide interior of kitchen, organized in two planes of depth to which a third one is added in the right side. In the foreground we see a set of kitchen utensils conceived as an independent still life, which occupies a large part of the composition. In the manner of the Flemish Pieter Aertsen (1508-1575) and Joachim Beuckelaer (1533-1574), the author of this work constructs a large naturalistic and scenographic painting, combining the still life with large figures to build a personal genre scene. In the seventeenth century, the genre of still life with figures will gain great importance in the Dutch and Flemish schools, with more dynamic and theatrical compositions, fully framed within the Baroque style, as we see here.
Due to its formal and stylistic characteristics, we can attribute this work to the hand of Hendrick Maertensz Sorgh, a Dutch painter of the Golden Age specialized in genre painting, with scenes generally set in interiors represented with great naturalism. He trained with the Flemish David Teniers the Younger, from whom he learned the main characteristics of Flemish genre painting, and was also a disciple of Willem Pieterszoon Buytewech, also specialized in genre themes but of Dutch nationality, coming from Rotterdam like Sorgh. He painted mainly interiors with peasants, and is especially appreciated for his kitchen interiors, which include very well elaborated still lifes. He also depicted market scenes, portraits, seascapes and historical subjects, although he is remembered as a genre painter. Works by his hand are now held in the Hermitage Museum in St. Petersburg, the National Gallery in London, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Metropolitan in New York, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Hunterian in Glasgow, the Statens Museum for Kunst in Copenhagen and other prominent public and private collections.