Pieter Aertsen (Amsterdam, 1508 – Amsterdam, 1575) was a Dutch painter in the style of Northern Mannerism. He was known as Lange Pier, or Tall Pete, because of his height. He is credited with inventing the monumental genre scene, which combines still life and everyday life with a biblical episode in the background. His work matters because he gave still life a status of its own, at a time when it was often considered the province of painters without invention.
He trained with Aertgen Claesz. van Leyden and later travelled to the Southern Netherlands, settling in Antwerp. There he joined the Guild of Saint Luke and in 1542 became a citizen of the city. He returned to Amsterdam between 1555 and 1556. His early works were religious, but by the 1550s he was placing everyday objects in the foreground. In Butcher's Shop, with the Flight into Egypt (1551) the meat stall fills most of the front of the image, while the Holy Family appears in the background, easy to overlook. He then painted kitchen maids, markets and cooks, such as The Cook (1559), with idealised figures and little comedy, unlike Pieter Bruegel the Elder.
Many of his religious paintings were lost during the iconoclasm of 1566 and during the days of the Alteratie in Amsterdam in 1578. His nephew Joachim Beuckelaer continued his style. Some of his paintings and prints reached Seville through Flemish merchants and influenced the young Diego Velázquez, whose works from that period, such as The Kitchen Maid or Christ in the House of Martha and Mary, clearly depend on Aertsen's example. He is also regarded as a forerunner of Bruegel and of the seventeenth-century still life painting of both Flanders and the Netherlands.
Works (16)
Painted in 1551 by Pieter Aertsen, this oil on panel shows a butcher's stall in the foreground, with sausages and hanging meat filling much of the composition. In the background, on a smaller scale, the Flight into Egypt unfolds. It is classed as an inverted still life, a category in which the sacred subject is pushed to the margins behind everyday food.
Painted in 1552 in oil on oak panel, this is an inverted still life: the religious scene, with Jesus between Martha and Mary of Bethany, sits in the background, while the kitchen and its food dominate the foreground. This mix of the everyday and the sacred is what gives the painting its character and invites a closer look.
Pieter Aertsen painted this oil on panel in 1553, blending a kitchen scene with a gospel episode. Food and utensils dominate the foreground, while Christ and the sisters Martha and Mary appear small in the background. The religious subject is thus pushed behind everyday abundance, a feature that gives the reverse still life its name.
Pieter Aertsen painted this Adoration of the Magi in 1560, on panel. The traditional religious scene appears in a more down-to-earth setting: the Child, the Virgin and the Magi occupy the foreground, while the painting's interest is shared with the everyday life surrounding them. No further reliable details about its commission are recorded here.
Painted by Pieter Aertsen in 1560, this genre scene shows a bakery interior where pancakes and waffles are being prepared and served. It is a large oil-on-panel work. The available information does not allow us to determine with certainty the commission or the symbolic meaning of the scene.
A religious painting dated 1560, executed in oil on panel and attributed to Pieter Aertsen. It shows scenes from the life of a bishop saint whose identity has not been established. The available information does not allow us to determine with certainty who commissioned it, its original setting, or the precise meaning of each scene, so it is best approached with caution.
Adoration of the Shepherds, an oil on panel dated 1555, is by Pieter Aertsen and is held at the Rouen Museum of Fine Arts. The religious scene gathers the shepherds before the newborn Child, accompanied by a cow and a donkey, animals traditionally associated with the Nativity story.
Pieter Aertsen painted this religious work in 1559 in oil on an oak panel. Its subject is the four evangelists, the authors of the Gospels that recount the life of Christ. The upright panel is held at the Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, where it can be seen today.
Pieter Aertsen painted this gospel scene of Christ in the house of Martha and Mary in 1559, placing the episode in the foreground with a lively kitchen market in the background. The record offers no further details about its commission or reception, so it is best to stick to what the composition shows.
Where to see the work
- Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium Brussels-Capital Region · 3
- Rijksmuseum Amsterdam · 2
- Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen Rotterdam · 2
- Museo de arte de Carolina del Norte Raleigh · 1
- Uppsala University Uppsala Municipality · 1
- Jacques Goudstikker collection · 1
- Kunsthandel P. de Boer · 1
- Gemäldegalerie Berlin Berlin · 1
- Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna · 1
- Musei di Strada Nuova Genoa · 1
- Musée des Beaux-Arts de Rouen Rouen · 1
- Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum Aachen · 1
Teachers and pupils
Studied with
- Aertgen van Leyden 1498–1564
Curiosities
A cook with the painter's face?
According to Zoran Kwak, a market scene with the Journey to Emmaus, painted by his son Pieter Pietersz the Elder, shows a half-naked cook who may be a comic self-portrait of Aertsen as Peiraikos, the painter of lowly subjects described by Pliny the Elder. The humanist Hadrianus Junius had already compared him to that classical painter in his Batavia, published posthumously in 1588.
Cooks with spits like marshal's batons
Two unusual portraits of female cooks, one in Genoa and one in Brussels, probably do not depict real individuals. The women hold roasting spits with poultry as if they were marshal's batons. One follows the three-quarter format that Titian devised for royal portraits, which gives the pair an unexpected dignity.