In the Presence of Things. Four Centuries of European Still-Life Painting. Part One: 17th - 18th Centuries

Organized by the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum and the first of its kind in Portugal, the exhibition In The Presence of Things - Four Centuries of European Still-Life Painting (Part One: 17th - 18th Centuries) brings to the public 71 paintings, many of them loaned by famous museums worldwide, such as the Louvre (Paris), The Metropolitan (N.Y.), Fitzwilliam Museum of Cambridge, Museo del Prado (Madrid), National Gallery of Art (Washington), Mauritshuis (Hage) and the Rijksmuseum (Amsterdam)
The depiction of the still-life theme, with its inherent differences between countries, can be appreciated through subjects such as fruit, game, cabinet of curiosities, trompe-l'oeil and vanitas.

In this first part of the exhibition, visitors will have the chance to see works by renowned names such as Antonio de Pereda, Jean-Baptiste Oudry, Jean Siméon Chardin, Juan van der Hamen, Juan Zurbarán,Nicolaes Gillis, Luis de Meléndez and Rembrandt van Rjin.

The curatorship is supervised by the Prof. Peter Cherry ( Chief of the Art History and Architecture department from the Trinity College of Dublin, Irish Republic) who is a specialist in spanish and italian still-lifes and counts with the colaboration of Dr. John John Loughman for the dutch, flemish and german paintings and Dr. Lesley Stevenson for the french paintings.

Prof. Neil Cox (Essex University) will colaborate in the second part of the exhibition, selecting and composing the texts about the still-life of the 20th century.
The first part of In The Presence of Things runs through May 2, 2010 at the Temporary Exhibition Gallery of the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum (Lisbon, Portugal).
The second part, representing the 19th and 20th centuries, will be shown to the public from October 21, 2011 through January 8, 2012.

Painting: "Smoking Kit With a Drinking Pot" by Jean-Baptiste-Simeon Chardin (Musée du Louvre)