The chef in this Spanish kitchen scene, painted around 1620 by an unknown Spanish master, seems very proud and content. He is surrounded by a rich variety of fish, meat and fowl and holds a bowl of red wine in his hands.
The kitchen scene genre already existed in Netherlandish painting, but some Spanish masters adopted it. While in the Netherlands, these works often had a specific moralistic connotation, this is less obvious in the works by the Spanish followers. Nevertheless, the card and coins in this painting may also contain a warning against worldly pleasures.
While it flourished in the Protestant Netherlands, the genre never attained the same popularity in the Catholic countries of southern Europe, where religious scenes were favored. In Spain, it was the famous artist Diego Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez (1599–1660) who temporarily specialized on this subject between 1617 and c. 1623. For that reason, it comes at no surprise that in 1923, when this painting was donated to the Rijksmuseum, it was attributed to Velázquez. Today its maker is simply described as the Master of the Bodegón (referring to the Spanish word for tavern).
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