Still Life with Meat and the Holy Family

Trained in his native city of Amsterdam, from 1535 Aertsen was also notably active in Antwerp, at that time the commercial and artistic capital of the Low Countries and one of the leading urban centres in Europe.

Aertsen’s works, which were generally executed for private clients, are extremely original in nature. Compositionally, the principal space is generally occupied by a still life painted in a markedly naturalistic manner while most of these scenes also include a religious episode in the background.

One of Aertsen’s best-known works is Still Life with Meat and the Holy Family (also known as The Meat Stall or The Butcher’s Stall), which the artist signed and dated in 1551. The present version in the Colección Santander is of notable quality and was painted in Aertsen’s own studio.

The most innovative aspect of this artist’s work is undoubtedly his inversion of traditional thematic hierarchy, a concept that would prove highly influential throughout Europe. In early seventeenth-century in Spain the young Velázquez produced still lifes that are indebted to this approach.

The combination of a religious scene and a still life implies a commentary on moral issues and correct behaviour. In this case the scene of the Virgin’s charity as she gives out alms is relegated to the background. No known contemporary document explains the significance of this work but it may well be that the artist’s intention was to present an image in which the excessive abundance in the foreground contrasts with the Virgin’s charitable actions.