Still Life with Herring, Bread, and Cheese
This painting forms a pair with the Still Life with Pipe and Matches. Along with several other paintings, they decorated the dining room of the artist's home, each painting representing a different stage of a meal. In this composition the artist focused his attention on rendering textures, which are as varied as the objects themselves: the skin of the smoked herrings, whose highlights echo the silver of the goblet and the cover of the pitcher; the spongy surface of the bread; the velvety crust of the cheese; and finally the soft wood surface (pine?) that supports this still life. The Latin inscription translates: "How virtuous and how great to live with simple things."
Colors in this work
Details
- Date
- 1858
- Medium
- oil on canvas
- Dimensions
- unframed: height 0.63 m, width 0.38 m
- Origin
- France, 19th century
- Department
- Modern European Painting and Sculpture
- Holding institution
- Cleveland Museum of Art
- Palette
-
Select a color to find related artworks.
- Image provider
- cleveland-museum-of-art
- License
- CC0-1.0
- Credit
- Bequest of Noah L. Butkin
Art Genome Taxonomy
9 tags
Subject Matter
-
Still Life Both · 99%
The title identifies the work as a still life, and the image visibly presents a composed arrangement of food and dining objects.
-
Food Both · 99%
Herrings, bread, and cheese are identified in the title and museum metadata and are clearly visible in the image.
-
Text Both · 99%
A red Latin inscription is prominently visible in the upper-left area, and the museum provides its translation.
Visual Qualities
-
Dark Colors Visual · 98%
The painting is dominated by deep brown and near-black tones, with subdued ocher, cream, and metallic highlights.
-
Highly Detailed Both · 94%
The image carefully differentiates surfaces such as reflective metal, fish skin, porous bread, soft cheese, ceramic, and wood; the museum specifically emphasizes the rendering of varied textures.
Medium and Techniques
-
Oil Painting Metadata · 100%
The Cleveland Museum of Art records the medium as oil on canvas.
Time Periods
-
19th Century Art Metadata · 100%
The work is dated 1858, placing it within nineteenth-century art.
Geographic Regions
-
French Art Metadata · 100%
The artist is identified as French and the place of origin is recorded as France.
Tableware, Vessels, and Objects
-
Tableware Visual · 94%
The composition includes recognizable dining implements, including a pitcher, goblet, plate, and knife.
Source & rights
Alexandre-Gabriel Decamps (French, 1803–1860). Still Life with Herring, Bread, and Cheese. Cleveland Museum of Art.
High-resolution sources
- Original TIFF ↗ 4,457 × 7,500 · Cleveland Museum Of Art · Available