Dutch school; 17th century. "Still life in the kitchen". Oil on oak panel. The panel is open and consolidated. It has a 19th century frame with slight faults. Measurements: 48 x 64,5 cm; 67 x 84 cm (frame). In this work the author captures an interior scene, in which a woman seated in the right zone of the scene is immersed in her tasks, while in the last plane another lady can be seen with her back to the spectator. The painting belongs to the aesthetic trend of depicting customs, one of the genres that enjoyed the greatest development in the Dutch Baroque school. Thus, the space is clearly defined and minutely depicted, and the figures are depicted at a large size. Both the two figures and the cow on the left of the composition are large. However, they are rivalled in prominence by the group of objects distributed over the entire surface, which are depicted as an independent still life. It was undoubtedly in the paintings of the Dutch school that the consequences of the political emancipation of the region and the economic prosperity of the liberal bourgeoisie were most evident. The combination of the discovery of nature, objective observation, the study of the concrete, the appreciation of the everyday, the taste for the real and the material, the sensitivity to the apparently insignificant, meant that the Dutch artist was at one with the reality of everyday life, without seeking any ideal that was alien to that same reality. The painter did not seek to transcend the present and the materiality of objective nature or to escape from tangible reality, but to envelop himself in it, to become intoxicated by it through the triumph of realism, a realism of pure illusory fiction, achieved thanks to a perfect, masterly technique and a conceptual subtlety in the lyrical treatment of light. As a result of the break with Rome and the iconoclastic tendency of the Reformed Church, paintings with religious themes were eventually eliminated as a decorative complement with a devotional purpose, and mythological stories lost their heroic and sensual tone in accordance with the new society. Thus portraiture, landscape and animals, still life and genre painting were the thematic formulas that became valuable in their own right and, as objects of domestic furnishings - hence the small size of the paintings - were acquired by individuals from almost all social classes and classes of society.During the 17th century various influences, mainly thematic, arrived in Holland from Flanders. Within the Flemish school at this time there was a high degree of specialisation among painters, focusing on still-life subjects, architecture, genre paintings, etc. Within this latter range of subjects, particularly notable were the tavern scenes depicted by Adriaen Brouwer and David Teniers the Younger, both from the first half of the 17th century. The success of this type of scene was deeply rooted in the Dutch Baroque school, dominated by the figures of Rembrandt and Hals. Dutch painters such as Vermeer and Pieter de Hooch focused on genre subjects, but mainly depicted scenes of the intimacy of the upper classes. On the other hand, certain authors looked to the works of Brouwer and Teniers to establish a different genre, taking the village as their model. Over time, the genre evolved independently in the Netherlands, moving away from the dark, warm and restrained chromatic settings typical of Flanders. Thus, in the present work, which dates from the early 18th century, a foreground in the semi-darkness is illuminated by a bright light, which draws silver glints from the objects around the table, arranged as if in a still life, and captured with the same attention to detail and the depiction of quality.