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It is worth noting that in this monochrome 'banketje', which is dominated by shades of grey, green and silver, the elements of the painting have been reduced to a small number of vessels. Thus the composition of the painting is determined by an overturned silver goblet, a half empty wine glass and two pewter plates. Although this is a so-called breakfast still-life (an onbijtje), hardly any food is shown, but only the sparse left-overs of a meal, such as the olive on the plate, where it forms some kind of optical barrier between the hollow foot of the goblet and the plate that reflects it. Unlike the overabundance of food in earlier Flemish still-lifes, this painting emphasizes a refinement of taste. Naive consumerism has been replaced by aesthetic sublimation under the influence of Protestant introspection and asceticism.
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