On a table in a kitchen interior we see kale, unpeeled and cut potatoes in a bowl, two onions, a plucked duck on a platter, a piece of meat, parsley, a piece of bacon, garlic and sausages. Hanging in the background are quails. On a shelf at the left are a pot and a wicker bottle. A cat with bulging eyes is staring at the viewer. Behind its back is a stoppered jug.

The artist’s inscription on the back of the canvas Inveni.(t) Pinxit tells us that Herrlein arranged the composition with the depicted objects himself. The cat belongs to the symbolism of old still lifes; it is an allusion to carnal lust (voluptas carnis).

The artist was following models of kitchen still lifes from the German and Central European art circles, although he was perhaps also acquainted with examples of the same subject in Roman 18th century painting.

This painting dates from the late 18th century and is the only Herrlein still life known up to the present.