Joachim Beuckelaer: 67 Masterpieces

Joachim Beuckelaer was a Flemish painter specialising in market and kitchen scenes with elaborate displays of food and household equipment. He learned to paint in the workshop of his uncle, Pieter Aertsen, who had married his aunt. Aertsen and Beuckelaer gradually developed images that detached the world of produce from the religious content of their earlier hybrid images. These later works depict either kitchens or markets and the persons associated with those activities, more often women than men. The later paintings by Beuckelaer show a greater profusion of foodstuffs in the market scenes, together with a more prominent foregrounding of female peasants immersed within these sales items. Beuckelaer also produced several images of fish stalls, often with background religious scenes, but sometimes completely separated from any additional narrative or reference. His work was influential on painters in Northern Italy, particularly Vincenzo Campi.