The Chinese porcelain bowl and Turkish carpet in this still life would both have been luxurious imports, here nonchalantly placed with wine and fruit on a wooden table. The bowl, a lemon peel spilling over its lip, balances on a piece of bread, animating the static arrangement of the objects. According to Gerard de Lairesse, a painter and writer of the next generation, Kalf "surpassed others in still life," although "he never . . . knew how to explain his images, why he depicted this or that, but simply [painted] whatever took his fancy."