Jambon et tomates

"Jambon et tomates" (Ham and Tomatoes) of 1918, held at the Kunsthaus Zürich, is one of Vallotton's most direct wartime still lifes — foodstuffs on a table, painted during a period when food security across Europe was significantly compromised by four years of conflict. The painting of food, particularly meat and vegetables, had a long history in European still-life tradition reaching back to Flemish seventeenth-century banquet and kitchen paintings, and continuing through Chardin's modest kitchen subjects. Vallotton's version is entirely without the abundance of Flemish tradition: two modest objects on a plain surface, observed with the same concentrated attention he gave to ceramic jugs and glass vessels. The Kunsthaus Zürich holds the most important institutional collection of Vallotton's work, preserving this canvas within a comprehensive survey of his still-life production across the decades.

Oil on canvas with smooth, controlled execution. The ham's complex surface — varying between the cut face and the outer crust — requires more tonal complexity than the simple geometric objects of Vallotton's typical still-life practice. Tomato skins provide saturated red notes against the neutral table surface. The composition is simple and direct, with no supplementary objects.