hendrick maertensz sorgh (1610 - 1670)

Explore Hendrick Maertensz Sorgh's Dutch Golden Age genre paintings! Intimate kitchen scenes, peasant life & market views by this Rotterdam master.

In this painting, Sorgh inflects a domestic scene with the art of still life. Two maids clean fish and peel vegetables in the foreground, surrounded by gleaming brass and earthenware. A closer look reveals a mischievous cat, an open birdcage, and, barely visible between the two servants, a couple caressing in the shadows. Even such seemingly innocuous elements as the earthenware pots would have carried an erotic connotation for seventeenth-century viewers.