The Cook By Bernardo Strozzi

In the painting known as The Cook (c. 1630-1640) (Fig. 1), the celebrated Genoese artist Bernardo Strozzi has depicted a genre scene that would – perhaps – not seem amiss nestled amidst the portfolios of the renowned Flemish genre painters Pieter Aertsen, Pieter Brueghel the Elder, and Willem Buytewech. Its composition features the interior of a cavernous kitchen, where an enticing young woman – presumably the titular cook – appears intent on plucking game. It could be argued, however, that The Cook – like the genre scenes of Aertsen, Brueghel, and Buytewech – enjoys myriad other conceits: that it is not, in fact, an undemanding, or unexacting, depiction of domesticity, but a piece that offers its viewers a commentary on the differences between

The origin of the joke probably lies in a pun, the Flemish words for “pluck” and “fornicate” being almost the same.

Language does, perhaps, play a larger role in both this and other Italian genre paintings than one might otherwise assume: much in the same way that ‘many northern European genre paintings were based on proverbs’, many northern Italian genre paintings – works by artists such as Carracci, Passarotti, and Strozzi – illustrate, or are inspired by, proverbs. That The Cook illustrates, or was inspired by, the saying ‘The hen is the poor man’s but the rich man eats it’ is thus entirely possibly. Strozzi’s cook is, after all, only preparing a meal for her masters and/or mistresses. She will not get to partake in it.

In conclusion: the original audience of Bernardo Strozzi’s The Cook, likely – if Strozzi’s other version of this painting is anything to go by – a powerful, or wealthy, family or patron, would have enjoyed its subject matter for a number of different reasons: it would have possibly emphasised, or highlighted, their own wealth; it would have allowed them access to an intriguing, unfamiliar world; it would have reiterated the notion of a divide’s existing between the low-born and themselves; it would have made them laugh, and it would have – cleverly and fashionably – engaged with proverbs and puns