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This painting depict a still-life of lemons and olives, pewter plates, a roemer and a façon-de-Venise wine glass on a ledge.
Pieter Claesz. started painting still-lifes at the start of the 1620s. His early works are in the tradition of his Haarlem peers Floris van Dijck, Nicolaes Gillisz. and Floris van Schooten, with a colourful palette and a relatively high viewpoint, and comprising many objects and foodstuffs such as various kinds of fruit. By the middle of the decade, when his chosen viewpoint becomes lower, he was painting still-lifes of great beauty and of a remarkably high quality,
The present painting dates from the moment when Pieter Claesz. arrived at a fully monochromatic style. Claesz. achieves this by choosing objects of a limited palette to occupy his composition. The tones throughout are predominantly yellow and green. There are no other colours anywhere within the painting. The vast background is rendered in a muted yellow-green, moving from darker tones to the left to lighter ones towards the right, where there is stronger illumination.
The painting is signed in monogram and dated lower right: PC Ao .1629.
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