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The still-life genre was created by Pieter Aertsen in an Antwerp that was the leading commercial centre in Europe at the time. To Aertsen, the arrangements of food - the symbolism of which was explained in the figure scenes in the background - were a necessary alternative to religious painting. During the early years of his career he created a number of altarpieces that he, to his great wrath and sorrow, saw destroyed during the iconoclastic riots of the Reformation.
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