Pompoen, perziken, abrikoos, pruimen en hazelnoten 1820 - 1833

Anton Weiss created this lithograph of fruits and nuts in the Netherlands during the first half of the 19th century. It's a simple still life, yet such images were gaining in popularity during this time as symbols of bourgeois domesticity. The print medium makes this image more accessible, and it’s easy to imagine middle-class households displaying such works to express their prosperity and refinement. Lithography itself was a relatively new technology at the time, and its adoption by artists like Weiss reflects a broader trend toward the democratization of art. The still life genre, freed from aristocratic patronage, allowed artists to appeal to a wider audience with images of everyday objects elevated to art. To understand the context of Weiss’s work, we might turn to period cookbooks, household inventories, and even conduct studies of Dutch horticultural practices. These resources would reveal the cultural significance of the depicted items and the social values they represented. Only then can we fully grasp how art actively participates in the construction of our daily lives.