![Vanitas painting, selfportrait most probably Clara Peeters](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/24/Vanitas_painting%2C_selfportrait_most_probably_Clara_Peeters.jpg)
Clara Peeters (active 1607–1621) was a
Flemish
Flemish (''Vlaams'') is a Low Franconian dialect cluster of the Dutch language. It is sometimes referred to as Flemish Dutch (), Belgian Dutch ( ), or Southern Dutch (). Flemish is native to Flanders, a historical region in northern Belgium; ...
still-life
A still life (plural: still lifes) is a work of art depicting mostly inanimate subject matter, typically commonplace objects which are either natural (food, flowers, dead animals, plants, rocks, shells, etc.) or man-made (drinking glasses, boo ...
painter from
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, who worked in both the
Spanish Netherlands
Spanish Netherlands (Spanish: Países Bajos Españoles; Dutch: Spaanse Nederlanden; French: Pays-Bas espagnols; German: Spanische Niederlande.) (historically in Spanish: ''Flandes'', the name "Flanders" was used as a ''pars pro toto'') was the Ha ...
and
Dutch Republic
The United Provinces of the Netherlands, also known as the (Seven) United Provinces, officially as the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands (Dutch: ''Republiek der Zeven Verenigde Nederlanden''), and commonly referred to in historiography ...
.
![Clara Peeters - Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b4/Clara_Peeters_-_Still_Life_with_Cheeses%2C_Almonds_and_Pretzels.jpg)
Peeters is the best-known female Flemish artist of this era and one of the few women artists working professionally in seventeenth-century Europe, despite restrictions on women's access to artistic training and membership in guilds. Peeters specialized in still-life paintings with food and was prominent among the artists who shaped the traditions of the Netherlandish ''ontbijtjes'', "breakfast pieces," scenes of food and simple vessels, and ''banketjes'', "banquet pieces" with expensive cups and vessels in precious metals.
Life
![Clara Peeters Stillleben](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/76/Clara_Peeters_Stillleben.jpg)
Details of Peeters' life are unclear. It is generally agreed by scholars that her work points to her being a native of
Antwerp
Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504, . The city of Antwerp's archives hold a record of a Clara Peeters, daughter of Jean (Jan) Peeters, baptized on 15 May 1594 in the Church of St. Walburga in Antwerp.
[Harris, Ann Sutherland, Linda Nochlin. Los Angeles County Museum of Art. ''Women Artists, 1550-1950''. Los Angeles; New York: Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Distributed by Random House, 1976.] A second document indicates a marriage between a Clara Peeters and Henricus Joosen on 31 May 1639, in the same church.
[Decoteau, Pamela Higgs. ''Clara Peeters, 1594- ca 1640, ''Germany, Lingen: Luca Verlag, 1992.] However, both Clara and especially
Peeters Peeters is a Dutch-language patronymic surname, equivalent to Peters. It is the most common surname in Belgium (33,275 people), and is particularly common in the province of Antwerp, but also in Flemish Brabant and Belgian Limburg. Notable people wi ...
were common names in Antwerp. A baptism in 1594 would imply that her 1607-dated paintings were done when she was 12 or 13. Some scholars doubt that those early works could have been done by one so young and have posited that she was born in the 1580s.
Peeters was established in Amsterdam by 1611 and documented in
The Hague
The Hague ( ; nl, Den Haag or ) is a city and municipality of the Netherlands, situated on the west coast facing the North Sea. The Hague is the country's administrative centre and its seat of government, and while the official capital of ...
in 1617.
[Wilenski, R.H. ''Flemish Painters 1430–1830''. New York: Viking Press, 1960.] Some have suggested that in light of there not being any evident work by Peeters after 1621, she ceased painting after getting married, as for example
Judith Leyster
Judith Jans Leyster (also Leijster; baptised July 28, 1609Molenaer, JudithNational Gallery of Art website. Accessed February 1, 2014. – February 10, 1660) was a Dutch Golden Age painter of genre works, portraits, and still lifes. Her work was h ...
effectively did. Because of the number of apparent copies of her work by various hands, some speculate that she may have headed a small school of artists.
No record indicating Peeters' date of death has been found; however, scholars speculate various dates: in or after 1621;
[ after 1654; after 1657; 1659 and 1676.]
Training
Peeters' first-known painting, signed and dated 1607, reflects the technical and compositional skill of a trained artist. Her style suggests training in Antwerp, an early center of still-life specialization.
While most artists and apprentices were included in records the local Guild of Saint Luke
The Guild of Saint Luke was the most common name for a city guild for painters and other artists in early modern Europe, especially in the Low Countries. They were named in honor of the Evangelist Luke, the patron saint of artists, who was ide ...
, no record of Peeters' has been found in Antwerp or centers of art in the Dutch Republic. Scholars speculate that she may have been the daughter of a painter, and thus not required to be included in the apprenticeship records.
Many scholars believe her work closely resembles that of Osias Beert
Osias Beert or Osias Beert the Elder (c. 1580 – 1623) was a Flemish painter active in Antwerp who played an important role in the early development of flower and "breakfast"-type still lifes as independent genres in Northern European art. He ...
and suggest she may have been his pupil. Beert began his career as a still-life painter when he became a master of the Antwerp guild in 1602. However, none of his works are dated, although some of the copper plates were stamped with dates from 1606 to 1609 by their supplier. She has also been linked to Antwerp artists Hans van Essen
Hans may refer to:
__NOTOC__ People
* Hans (name), a masculine given name
* Hans Raj Hans, Indian singer and politician
** Navraj Hans, Indian singer, actor, entrepreneur, cricket player and performer, son of Hans Raj Hans
** Yuvraj Hans, Punjabi ...
and Jan van der Beeck
Johannes (Jan) Symonsz van der Beeck (1589 – buried 17 February 1644) was a Dutch painter also known by his alias Johannes Torrentius. ("Torrentius" is a Latin equivalent of the surname van der Beeck, meaning "of the brook" or "of the river".) ...
.[Chadwick, Whitney. ''Women, Art, and Society''. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 1990.] Jan Bruegel the Elder has also been suggested as a possible teacher.
Although she was not in its records, at least one painting of Peeters bears the stamp of the Antwerp Guild on its back, indicating she may indeed have been a member, or at least worked on panels made by members of the Antwerp Guild.
Work
Peeters signed thirty-one works "CLARA PEETERS" or "CLARA P.", and dated many of them, which leaves a strong record of her work from 1607 to 1621. Eighteen of these were completed by the time she was eighteen years old. In addition, another seventy-six works are speculated to be in her oeuvre, although documentation is lacking to assign them affirmatively to Peeters. Several of her paintings, including two illustrated here, carry the signature represented as an engraved inscription on the side of the handle of the same decorated knife. The knife has two nude female figures on the main face of the handle that is visible, and is typical of the sort of "brides knife" (''bruidmessen'') Antwerp silversmiths produced around 1595–1600. These may represent a real knife owned by Peeters, or simply an imagined one.
Peeters was among the earliest specialist painters of still lifes and flowers, working while this genre was still emerging. Fewer than ten paintings of flowers and fewer than five of food produced in the Netherlands can be dated before 1608, when she painted her first recorded work. She painted a set of four larger than usual (all 50‒51 × 71‒73 cm) still lifes, three dated 1611, that were in the Spanish royal collection by the following century (now in the Prado
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It migh ...
). The set includes the earliest still-life of dead game bird
Galliformes is an order of heavy-bodied ground-feeding birds that includes turkeys, chickens, quail, and other landfowl. Gallinaceous birds, as they are called, are important in their ecosystems as seed dispersers and predators, and are often ...
s, if Jacopo de' Barbari
Jacopo de' Barbari, sometimes known or referred to as de'Barbari, de Barberi, de Barbari, Barbaro, Barberino, Barbarigo or Barberigo (c. 1460/70 – before 1516), was an Italian painter, printmaker and miniaturist with a highly individual style. ...
's famous ''Still-Life with Partridge and Gauntlets'' (1504, now Munich) from a very different tradition is excepted. The Prado group were split between Spanish palaces in the 18th century, with the earliest inventory record for any being in 1734, when one was rescued in the fire that destroyed the Royal Alcazar of Madrid
Royal may refer to:
People
* Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name
* A member of a royal family
Places United States
* Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community
* Royal, Illinois, a village
* Royal, Iowa, a cit ...
. Her paintings of fish and game of 1611 appear well before other artists used similar subject matter.
In her works before 1620, Peeters was especially fascinated by the fall of light on metal objects – coins, goblets, pewter dishes, etc. – and their reflections. She depicted herself in the reflection of goblets and gilt-cups of many of her paintings, a custom in Netherlandish art dating back over a century, as seen in works like Jan van Eyck's ''Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele
''The Virgin and Child with Canon van der Paele'' is a large oil-on-oak panel painting completed around 1434–1436 by the Early Netherlandish painter Jan van Eyck. It shows the painting's donor, Joris van der Paele, within an apparition of sain ...
'' (1434–1436).
Patrons
Although no record of patrons is available, it appears Peeters was a successful artist. Many aspects of her paintings suggest that her paintings would have been created for wealthy collectors, as they are particularly large and depict luxury items of the era. Four of Peeter's early works came to the Prado from the Spanish royal collection
The Spanish royal collection of art was almost entirely built up by the monarchs of the Habsburg family who ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, and then the Bourbons (1700–1868, with a brief interruption). They included a number of kings with a serio ...
, and one is found listed in a collection from 1627, while another is listed in a document of a notary in 1628.
Works
File:Mesa (Clara Peeters).jpg, ''Table with Orange, Olives and Pie'', probably 1611, with the "signed knife", from the Prado
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It migh ...
se
File:Clara Peeters - Bodegón (Prado) 01.jpg, 1611, from the Prado
The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum
An art museum or art gallery is a building or space for the display of art, usually from the museum's own collection. It migh ...
set. Arguably the first still-life of dead game birds
File:WLA lacma Clara Peeters still life.jpg, ''Still Life with Cheeses, Artichoke, and Cherries'', 1612–161
File:Clara Peeters - Still Life with Crab, Shrimps and Lobster - Google Art Project.jpg, ''Still Life with Crab, Shrimps and Lobster'', unattributed painting in the style of Clara Peeters, 1630–3
Notes
References
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External links
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Peeters, Clara
Clara Peeters,
1580s births
17th-century deaths
17th-century women artists
Flemish Baroque painters
Flemish still life painters
Flemish women painters
Dutch Golden Age painters
People from Antwerp Province
Painters from Antwerp