How you can use this image
This image is available to be shared and re-used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives licence (CC BY-NC-ND).
You can reproduce this image for non-commercial purposes and you are not able to change or modify it in any way.
Wherever you reproduce the image you must attribute the original creators (acknowledge the original artist(s) and the person/organisation that took the photograph of the work) and any other rights holders.
Review our guidance pages which explain how you can reuse images, how to credit an image and how to find more images in the public domain or with a Creative Commons licence available.
DownloadNotes
Add or edit a note on this artwork that only you can see. You can find notes again by going to the ‘Notes’ section of your account.
'Cookmaid' and market scenes, popular in the seventeenth century, evolved in the Low Countries from a genre practised by Pieter Aertsen and his pupil Joachim Beuckalaer, which combined contemporary kitchen scenes with a New Testament episode beyond. Bacon could have seen such works on a visit he made to the Low Countries in 1613. An inventory of 1659 connected to the will of the artist's wife lists 'Ten Great peeces in Wainscote of fish and fowle &c done by S:r Nath: Bacon' (quoted in Gervase Jackson-Stops, ed., 'The Treasure Houses of Britain', exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC 1985, p.140). Two other 'Cookmaid' pictures are known to exist: 'Cookmaid with Still Life of Game' and 'Cookmaid with Still Life of Birds', both in the possession of the artist's descendants.
Further reading: Karen Hearn (ed.), 'Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530–1630', exhibition catalogue, Tate Gallery 1995, p.220, reproduced p.221 in colour Terry Riggs October 1997.
Title
Cookmaid with Still Life of Vegetables and Fruit
Date
c.1620–5
Medium
Oil on canvas
Measurements
H 151 x W 247.5 cm
Accession number
T06995
Acquisition method
Purchased with assistance from the Art Fund 1995
Work type
Painting
