Food Related Painting of the Week

Christ and the Adulteress
Pieter Aertsen, 1559

Christ and the Adulteress
(from the Web Gallery of Art)

Yet another "inside-out" painting (sense a trend here?), this one from Amsterdam. So what do we have here? Front and center is an assortment of fruit and vegetables: carrots (maybe in two different colors, but it might just be shadow), onions, cucumbers (that look slightly fat like that cucumber-like thing last week), strawberries (in front) and peaches (just behind them), and a couple different kinds of cabbage. I think there's something that looks like an acorn squash in with the cabbage, but it's hard to tell.

Note the basket of very modern looking eggs in the front. Enough said on that.

Just behind the veggies is a basket of round things. They could be bread, but they seem just a bit too uniform in color. Cheeses maybe? That would make sense in connection with the pots of milk just behind them. This brings me to the oddly shaped things in the lower right corner, partly covered, in the bowl sitting on top of the bird cage. I haven't the foggiest idea just what they are. As a guess I'd say butter - something about the way they're kept in a bowl and (presumably) kept covered. I've seen these in other pictures, and they may (or may not) be related to the Mysterious Football-Shaped Things® discussed elsewhere.

Oh, and while they're not food, I love the pile of cookpots in the lower left. I need to buy a few of those.