Pieter Aertsen

Pieter Aertsen was a pioneering Dutch and Flemish Renaissance painter known for inventing the monumental market and kitchen scene genre, in which lavish foreground displays of food and goods dwarf small religious narratives placed in the background. His landmark work 'Butcher's Stall with the Flight into Egypt' (1551) is considered one of the earliest examples of still-life painting as a primary subject in Western art. Held in collections including the Uppsala University Art Collections and the Rijksmuseum, his work laid critical groundwork for the development of still life and genre painting in 17th-century Dutch and Flemish art.