This ambitious picture is transitional in Aertsen’s development. Many of his early works were filled with a large number of small figures and only later did he introduce the smaller groups of figures which often dominate the picture plane. Here the figures are divided into two horizontal bands of medium scale. They are united by a very carefully ordered perspective together by the lines on the tiled floor. The subject matter from St. Luke is at once obvious: Christ in the house of Martha and Mary where Mary listens to Jesus’ word while Martha did the serving.  When Martha rebuked Jesus he reminded her that Mary was right to listened to him. Christ appears focally in the centre background and the architectural motifs are distinctly Renaissance, the backdrop resembling the Arch of Titus in Rome. The artist would have known these elements from the architectural pattern books of Serlio which were circulating in the Netherlands throughout the period. The whole of the left foreground is dominated by Aertsen’s favourite motifs of a still life of fruit and vegetables.

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