Still Life with Hen and Onion

Ceruti portrays a few provisions from a home larder — a red onion, a terracotta carafe and a plucked hen — their surfaces picked out by a bright light as they emerge from the surrounding darkness of the painting. The Brescian master, best remembered for his large canvases of the poor and humble that won him the nickname Pitocchetto, “the little beggar-painter,” brought the same grave, unsentimental attention to the plainest still-life objects; this small kitchen piece is one of a pair of larder pictures, its companion showing bread, salami and nuts. The painting is held in the J. Paul Getty Museum.