Still Life

Born in Moravia, Flegel trained under a Flemish artist before settling in the mercantile hub of Frankfurt, where he specialized in still-life paintings of meals. Here, he presents the viewer with an enticing array of food and drink on a linen tablecloth. The juxtaposition of the small bird’s carcass on the plate with the living bird on the loaf of bread adds a note of macabre humor to the scene. Such tensions between life and death frequently characterize still-life painting.