Clara Peeters

Presumed portrait of Clara Peeters, unknown artist, n.d.

ca. 1587 to after 1636

While definite details concerning her life are scarce, records indicate that Peeters was baptized in Antwerp in 1594 and married there in 1639. There is no indication that Peeters ever joined the Antwerp painters’ guild, but the records for many relevant years are missing.

Peeters’s earliest dated oil paintings, from 1607 and 1608, are small-scale, detailed images representing food and beverages. The skill with which this young artist executed such pictures indicates that she must have been trained by a master painter. Although there is no documentary evidence of her artistic education, scholars believe that Peeters was a student of Osias Beert, a noted still-life painter from Antwerp.

By 1612, Peeters was producing large numbers of painstakingly rendered still lifes, typically displaying groupings of valuable objects, such as elaborately decorated metal goblets, gold coins, and exotic flowers. Her compositions often show these arrangements on narrow ledges, seen from low vantage points, against dark backgrounds.

Artist Details

  • Name

    Clara Peeters
  • Birth

    Antwerp, Belgium, ca. 1587
  • Death

    Unknown, after 1636
  • Phonetic Spelling

    KLAH-rah PAY-terrs
  • NMWA Exhibitions

    Four Centuries of Womens Art: The National Museum of Women in the Arts, 1990–91

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