Clara Peeters

Clara Peeters (; ) was a Flemish still-life painter from Antwerp who worked in both the Spanish Netherlands and Dutch Republic. Still Life with Cheeses, Almonds and Pretzels, c. 1615, with the "signed knife", and a reflection of the painter on the rim of the jug lid. Bought by the Mauritshuis in 2012.

Peeters is the best-known female Flemish artist of this era and one of the few women artists working professionally in seventeenth-century Europe, despite restrictions on women's access to artistic training and membership in guilds. Peeters specialized in still-life paintings with food and was prominent among the artists who shaped the traditions of the Netherlandish ontbijtjes, "breakfast pieces," scenes of food and simple vessels, and banketjes, "banquet pieces" with expensive cups and vessels in precious metals.

Life

Details of Peeters' life are unclear. It is generally agreed by scholars that her work points to her being a native of Antwerp. The city of Antwerp's archives hold a record of a Clara Peeters, daughter of Jean (Jan) Peeters, baptized on 15 May 1594 in St. Walburga Church, Antwerp. A second document indicates a marriage between a Clara Peeters and Henricus Joosen on 31 May 1639, in the same church. However, both Clara and especially Peeters were common names in Antwerp. A baptism in 1594 would imply that her 1607-dated paintings were done when she was 12 or 13. Some scholars doubt that those early works could have been done by one so young and have posited that she was born in the 1580s.

Peeters was established in Amsterdam by 1611 and documented in The Hague in 1617. Some have suggested that in light of there not being any evident work by Peeters after 1621, she ceased painting after getting married, as for example Judith Leyster effectively did. Because of the number of apparent copies of her work by various hands, some speculate that she may have headed a small school of artists. She has also been linked to Antwerp artists Hans van Essen and Jan van der Beeck. Jan Bruegel the Elder has also been suggested as a possible teacher. Her works were known for incorporating her self-portraits into the reflections or shiny surfaces of everyday objects, such as jugs, fruits and vegetables.

Peeters was among the earliest specialist painters of still lifes and flowers, Her paintings of fish and game of 1611 appear well before other artists used similar subject matter.

Scholars speculate, based on the continual use of the same motifs and differing quality of work in some of her paintings, that Peeters may have run her own workshop and tasked her students with painting these repetitive motifs.

In 2022 a re-evaluation of Still Life with Small Game and Grapes on a Gilded Tazza, by Cynthia Osiecki, curator of the National Museum of Norway, led to a new attribution to Peeters. The painting had previously been attributed to Ambrosius Brueghel, but after an early-20th-century reassessment, the work was reclassified as being by "anonymous". The inclusion of a tazza in the composition was similar to other Peeters works and there were also similarities in the positioning of the dead birds, grapes and hazelnuts. The edge of the painting, where Peeters would typically have signed her name, had been destroyed by woodworm. The painting will feature in the "Woman Painter" exhibition at the museum, curated by Osiecki and opening in October 2026.

Patrons Although no record of patrons is available, it appears Peeters was a successful artist. Many aspects of her paintings suggest that her paintings would have been created for wealthy collectors, as they are particularly large and depict luxury items of the era. Four of Peeter's early works came to the Prado from the Spanish royal collection, and one is found listed in a collection from 1627, while another is listed in a document of a notary in 1628.

Selected works