Every month or so, I visit my local home furnishing store, and spend an hour or so looking for objects to paint. As often as not, I leave empty handed, but last month, I got lucky. I'm (obviously) a big fan of classical Dutch still life, and some of my favorite painters often include knives with really exquisite mother-of-pearl handles in their compositions.

So there on the bargain shelf was a set of 6 of these steak knives; not mother-of-pearl, but the effect was pretty similar. I have to say they're rather useless for cutting anything (probably why they were on the bargain shelf), but do they ever look great in a still life.