Stillleben: Alter Wein und Brot

This 1896 canvas by Albert Anker belongs to the same productive year that saw him complete his paired still lives on Excess and Moderateness. The late 1890s were among Anker's most concentrated periods of still-life production — he turned increasingly to objects as subjects, perhaps as a response to declining eyesight that made the precise figure drawing required for his genre paintings more demanding. Still-life subjects allowed continued technical mastery with less dependence on acute observation of human expression. Whatever this work's specific content, it likely reflects the warm domestic palette and careful material differentiation characteristic of his still-life practice in this period.

Anker's still-life canvases from 1896 show his technical approach applied to objecthood: the same layered glazes used to render skin are redeployed for ceramic glazing; the same tonal gradients that model a cheek model the curve of a jug or bowl. His colour temperature management ensures that warm light and cool shadow remain in productive dialogue across every object in the composition.