Willem Claesz. Heda

Signed and dated 1661, this rich still life is a mature work by Willem Claesz. Heda. In late works such as this, Heda turned away from the simplicity and serenity of the monochrome banketjes that dominated his youth and early maturity, towards the more sumptuous pronkstillevens popularised by Jan Davidsz. de Heem and Willem Kalf. In these compositions, Heda adopted a more luxuriant approach, including precious Wunderkammer objects of porcelain, silver, and vertu with greater chromatic range.

The present painting makes clear that Heda’s focus remained on observing and describing the textural differences of the various surfaces and materials. Set against a neutral background and displayed under diffused lighting, he records the objects with attentive detail, emphasizing the coarseness of the oysters, fibrousness of the Persian rug, opalescence of the Nautilus cup, and translucence of the glassware. In comparison to works of the 1630s and 1640s, this composition is notably more ambitious: the richly woven Persian rug partly drapes the stone ledge, diligently polished as seen by the reflections of the discarded oyster shells. The delicate porcelain bowl is slightly off balance, its weight shifted by a heavy, ripe lemon, and a peeled lemon rests in the folds of the carpet, its rind hanging down over the edge of the table. The silver charger, a knife carefully balanced on its rim, are positioned precariously over the edge of the table, adding a dynamic tension and depth of perspective to the scene.

Several of the objects on display in the present still life recur throughout Heda’s oeuvre, suggesting that the various props must have been at the artist’s disposal in his studio. The elaborate silver-mounted, mother-of-pearl Nautilus cup appears as early as 1649 in a signed and dated work in the Staatliches Museum in Schwerin, but becomes a more prominent object in his compositions from the mid-1650s onwards.¹ A smaller, horizontal version of this composition, signed and dated 1662, sold at Sotheby’s London, July 10, 2014, lot 173 and another version of that format, undated, sold at Sotheby’s Amsterdam, November 11, 2008, lot 43.

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer for endorsing the present attribution as a fully characteristic late work by Willem Claesz. Heda on the basis of digital images.

¹ Inv. no. G 68, oil on panel, 49.5 by 68.5 cm.