Seventeenth-century Dutch still life paintings often featured fish, ceramics, glassware, and linens to celebrate the riches of the table--and to showcase the artist's prowess at rendering a variety of surfaces. Here Hatton seems to offer a more modest, Colorado version of this tradition, complete with fresh trout and the blades of grass that had protected them in the fisherman's creel, as well as a cast iron frying pan and a red Hill's Brothers coffee can where Hatton stored bacon fat for cooking and soap making. According to Hatton's niece, it was Hatton's brother-in-law, George, who caught these trout for breakfast, and he was not thrilled when Hatton appropriated them for her painting
instead.