Still Life with a Carp’s Head

Both still lifes feature as their main motifs the traditional fish species of Czech cooking - carp and pike. The crockery and glasses correspond to the manner of dining of burgher society of the time. The otherwise relatively modest dish of fish could suggest that this is the day of fast. Besides a funnel-shaped glass, goblet of the roemer type was represented, with the traditional raspberry decor - those goblets were used for white wine only and they were produced from the so-called “forest glass”, of the characteristic greenish shade. Before Angermayer, still lifes of similar motifs were created by the Moravian painter Georg Flegel, in whose works we can find similar groups of fish, wine, and bread, which could symbolically express the Eucharist.