Adoration of the Lobster
Brown began Adoration of the Lobster during the course of her 2023 survey exhibition at The Met, Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, which explored key themes in her work, including still life, memento mori, mirroring, and vanitas. The painting draws in part upon Brown’s extensive study of The Five Senses (1617–18), a series of allegorical paintings by Peter Paul Rubens and Jan Brueghel the Elder, housed in the Prado, Madrid. These complex seventeenth-century works feature multilayered compositions often with the recurring motif of the picture gallery.
Dominated by an inky purple background conjuring a nocturnal setting, at the center of Adoration, crimson passages, pastel strokes, and multicolored lines offer fleeting articulations of the titular lobster (influenced by Brown’s study of Frans Snyders), interior spaces of mirrors and windows, and the fugitive presence of figures. The dense composition uses a printed version of Brown’s earlier canvas, No You for Me (2013), turned on its side as an underlayer, though the earlier composition is no longer visible beneath the thickly-painted surface. Reflecting on this technique, Brown described using digital prints of her own work as a painting ground "like a stage." She added, "[I find it] a great jumping-off point, rather than having to make it up yourself... Painting on reproductions of my own and now other people's images makes so much sense after having copied them forever. It's like doing a cover of someone else's song."[1]
[1] "Window, Mirror, Stage: A Conversation with Cecily Brown," Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2023, p. 105.
Dominated by an inky purple background conjuring a nocturnal setting, at the center of Adoration, crimson passages, pastel strokes, and multicolored lines offer fleeting articulations of the titular lobster (influenced by Brown’s study of Frans Snyders), interior spaces of mirrors and windows, and the fugitive presence of figures. The dense composition uses a printed version of Brown’s earlier canvas, No You for Me (2013), turned on its side as an underlayer, though the earlier composition is no longer visible beneath the thickly-painted surface. Reflecting on this technique, Brown described using digital prints of her own work as a painting ground "like a stage." She added, "[I find it] a great jumping-off point, rather than having to make it up yourself... Painting on reproductions of my own and now other people's images makes so much sense after having copied them forever. It's like doing a cover of someone else's song."[1]
[1] "Window, Mirror, Stage: A Conversation with Cecily Brown," Cecily Brown: Death and the Maid, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, 2023, p. 105.
Artwork Details
- Title: Adoration of the Lobster
- Artist: Cecily Brown (British, born London, 1969)
- Date: 2023–24
- Medium: Oil on UV-curable pigment on linen
- Dimensions: 67 × 83 in. (170.2 × 210.8 cm)
- Classification: Paintings
- Credit Line: Gift of the artist in honor of Ian Alteveer and Sheena Wagstaff, 2025
- Object Number: 2025.278
- Curatorial Department: Modern and Contemporary Art
More Artwork
A slider containing 5 items.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Press the down key to skip to the last item.
Cecily Brown
2004
Cecily Brown
2004
Cecily Brown
August 2003
Cecily Brown
2008
Multiple artists/makers
2003
Research Resources
The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.
To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.
Feedback
We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.