Still Life with the servant Matteo

The painting is the last large-scale still life painted by the artist during his Venetian period, considered the most creative part in Schuch's life. The painter wrote about it in April 1879: "This great Still Life with Matteo I am still finishing as much as I can, and will deal with it next winter, as it will dry well in the summer heat, and can be completed very well in places rubbed out for corrections".

The servant who ran the artist's household sits behind a table cleaning tin jugs. Their silver shines alongside a large red lobster, white fabrics, a copper cauldron, a basket with cabbage and a glass fruit platter. Flasks of Chianti hang against the muted olive background of the wall.

Schuch, educated at the Academy of Vienna, who spent a lot of his time working in Italy, painted mostly landscapes and still lifes, focusing on experiments in the construction of form with colour and light. He collaborated with the German realist painters Wilhelm Leibel and Wilhelm Trübner, and was also greatly inspired by his studies of Dutch and French paintings.
[Beata Lejman]

keywords: lobster (crustacean)  |  kettle  |  painting (fine arts)  |  German painting  |  still life  |  man  |  fruit  |  work (activity)