Still-life painting was also considered a suitable genre for upper-class women: it didn’t pose a threat to male artists, who no doubt liked to guard ‘great’ and ‘intellectual’ subjects (mythological, religious), nor did it require a knowledge of human anatomy; moreover the objects were easily accessible from the home. Paintings of flowers and edible goods – dainties that once lived – had moral meanings. They represented vanitas, a word derived from the Bible, to remind the viewer of their own mortality; the fragility and temporality of life; the worthlessness of material goods in the eyes of
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