Trompe l'Oeil Still Life

Understood in the 1700s as a delightful, intellectual game, trompe l’oeil paintings and drawings such as this one were devised to “trick the eye” as the French term suggests. Toeing the line between realism and deception, the details of these compositions expose them as elaborate illusions. Here, Jacobus Cornelis Meyer’s image invites the viewer to uncover the trick. While the print depicted at center alludes to a well-known Dutch comedy revolving around hidden identity, the open curtain and fictional tears and creases in the papers encourage the viewer to physically reach out and break the illusion.

A vertically oriented pen and watercolor painting in browns and greens depicts a still life on a grained wooden board. A central dark print shows a man and woman in an 18th-century doorway. To the right, a textured green curtain hangs from a thin rod. Below, overlapping torn newspapers show gothic script, the date "1753," and "ALMANACH" in red. A red wax seal sits atop swirling wood grain at the upper left.

Trompe l'Oeil Still Life

c. 1754

Jacobus Cornelis Meyer

(Dutch, active 1700s)

Netherlands

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