HEDA, Willem Claesz.

This early still-life of Heda shows drinking vessels and a salt-cellar made of gold-plated metal with delicately engraved ornamental patterns that gently reflect the light. In fact, the overall monochrome character of the painting only admit a faint sheen. A tall, slim polygonal glass with horizontal grooves and a diamond structure towers above the table like a column. In front of it, almost like a counterpoint, there are two plates, one with left-overs from a berry pie that has only been half eaten. On the left, an empty glass is leaning on the plate. Between the glass and the plate a knife has been precariously placed so that it is threatening to fall off the table at any time. Finally, there are some walnuts and hazelnuts, suggesting that this, too, is a dessert still-life.

The aesthetically conservative principle of tables arranged strictly parallel to the horizontal edges of the painting was followed by Nicolaes Gillis and Floris Claesz van Dijck. (Predecessors were probably family paintings such as Marten van Heemskerck’s.) Their still-lifes are classified as ‘ontbijtjes’ (breakfast still-lifes). Onbijt(je) was a light meal which could be taken at any time of the day.

All these artists show a table with a table runner and a carefully ironed, white damask tablecloth whose creases, regardless of the laws of perspective, run in parallel lines towards the back of the painting. A relatively high viewpoint was also chosen, apparently to afford a good overall survey of the objects, which are arranged side by side, or in a circle, hardly ever touching or overlapping. The precious drinking vessels and pieces of textile show very clearly that the arrangement is that of a privileged household.

In the early 1630s Heda began to use the compositional structures developed by Nicolaes Gillis and Floris van Dijck. Unlike those artists, however, he placed the white tablecloth on the left or right-hand edge of the table, so that the middle of the table is not covered and is no longer symmetric. In subsequent ‘banketjes’ (banquet pieces), the tablecloth was pushed further and further aside - as early as 1638 in Heda’s paintings - until it was actually crumpled. Whereas for quite some time food was shown as almost untouchable, precious and just for display, increasing traces of consumption are now visible. The objects were no longer merely intended to embody status-defining values, but became evidence of spontaneous acts which disrupted the festive structures of the framework.

A relatively high viewpoint was chosen, apparently to afford a good overall survey of the objects, which are arranged side by side, hardly ever touching or overlapping.

Around 1600 Dutch painting takes a decisive step, as still-life breaks away definitively from its context in history painting and develops into a complex genre of its own. Pieter Claesz had a great influence on still-life painting in Haarlem. The so-called ‘breakfast’ or ‘banquet’ pieces of the Haarlem school are characterised by their focus on a few objects representing a meal. This portrait of dumb, inanimate objects is asymmetrically arranged and its colour tends towards the monochrome. The foreshortening and overlapping of objects ties them into a subtle network of mutual relations. The tendency towards unity of atmosphere and colour that develops in the 1620s is manifested here in the generally grey-brown tone of the whole painting, which unites the individual objects into a whole, counterpointed by the local colour of the lemon and the little loaf of bread. Alongside these subtle nuances of colour is a play of light that both emphasises the modelling of the surfaces and introduces accents of light and shade.

Heda’s rich breakfasts bring together, in a refined grey-olive green tone, tokens of prosperity - silver and gilt tableware, expensive glass articles, and the like. Their discreet sheen is brought out by the whiteness of the crumpled satin tablecloth, a symbol of rejected virtue that allows the artist to demonstrate his mastery of chiaroscuro modeling.

To obtain a more monumental effect, during his maturity Heda often abandons the traditional horizontal format for a vertical one.

The picture depicts a still-life of a roemer filled with white wine, a wine-glass, a silver beaker on its side, a ham and a bread-roll on pewter plates, all arranged on a wooden table partly draped with a white cloth. This painting is entirely characteristic of the artist’s work in the early 1650s.

One important strand in Dutch still-life painting is referred to by art historians as ‘monochrome breakfast pieces’ (monochrome banketjes). These consist of simple images, rendered with a limited palette, of tables set for a meal. Despite the possible allusion to biblical tables, they chiefly convey a sober interest in everyday reality. Heda’s painting is a good example of this genre.

The painting is signed and dated bottom right on tablecloth: HEDA / 1649.

Heda did not start to paint diagonal compositions until the mid-1630s: the compositions start with flat plates, continue with pieces of ham and goblets, and culminate in a zenith-like fashion with beer or water jug. At times this pattern was of course broken, especially when Heda had to depict the valuable crockery of distinguished households, such as columbine goblets, cups of welcome, etc. Heda then went back either to his triangular or his pyramid-shaped compositions. But it is noticeable that whenever he did this, he also increased the incidence of ‘chaotic’ elements, showing, for example, the white table-cloth extremely crumpled as well as an overturned jug. (The overturning of goblets goes back to an ancient custom, and in the 16th and 17th centuries goldsmiths, for example, fashioned special goblets that had to be emptied all at once so that they could be placed on the table upside down.)

This is a still-life of exceptionally harmonious composition, lighting and colour.

Heda’s monochrome banketje still-lifes from the first half of the 1630s form a remarkably cohesive group. He drew from a strictly limited repertoire of objects, which recur in close relationship to one another in many if not most of his pictures from this period. The relationship between them is modulated, but not substantially altered. The roemer containing white wine and the overturned tazza, seen in the present picture, are usually shown, as here, with the roemer behind the foot of the overturned tazza, although they are shown at either side of the composition or in its centre. This motif is found in several works from 1630, and then consistently until 1634, when Heda completely ceased to use it, except for a few substantially later works in which he seems deliberately to have revisited his early period. The staggered arrangement of partly eaten pies on pewter dishes is also found in many of his pictures from this early period, starting with the picture dated 1631 in Dresden.

Still-life became an extremely important and much-painted genre in 17th-century Holland, and numerous different ways of interpreting the subject developed, amongst them some with a moralizing intention and representing a reflection upon life and its pleasures. Heda was one of the best painters of still-lifes of serving tables and food, to which he gives a monumental feel and at the same time a certain compositional restraint, which suggests to us that we should apply a similar restraint towards our consumption of the food.

Heda’s style is characterized by its use of a monochromatic palette of green, grey and silvery tones. His compositions are balanced and never overcrowded, depicting a tabletop on which various items of food, objects and luxurious vessels are casually but carefully arranged. Pewter (a metal used for jugs and plates), silver and glass were the materials most painted by the artist.

Heda repeated this composition several times with some variations.

This signed and dated still-life of oysters, a nautilus cup, a roemer, lemon and other objects is a mature work by Heda, incorporating several of the objects and props that fill a number of works from preceding years, such as the elaborate mother-of-pearl nautilus cup. In late works such as this Heda has clearly abandoned the monochrome banketjes that dominated his youth and early maturity, towards the more sumptuous pronk still-lifes popularised by Jan Davidsz. de Heem and Willem Kalf.

In this painting Heda took care to give the pewter jug a duller gloss than the silver vessels, and to make the lemon peel a brighter yellow than the soft ochre pie. This bring the still-life close to contemporary tonal landscape. There is another aspect (apart from the attempts to reduce the colours to a common denominator) and that is the curiously indeterminate space. The objects are put on a table, but the table is placed against a plain background which is strangely transparent with dull light. The still-life almost seems to float, like the mirage of trees on the still, reflective water in the river landscapes of Salomon van Ruysdael. Since the back-edge of the table is obscured from view, making a measurement of space is almost impossible.

An occasional symbol may be slipped in the still-life. Here the peeled lemon symbolizes Deceptive Appearance: beautiful to look at, a lemon yet tastes sour.

This monochrome ‘banketje still-life’ depicts a gilt cup, a silver tazza, glasses and pewter plates with a pie, peeled lemon and nuts, all upon a draped table. Heda first began to paint such still-lifes in the early 1630s, and their constituent parts are remarkably consistent: simple groups of objects, typically glass and silverware as here, accompanied by lemons and other food, all placed in close relationship to one another upon a simply draped table.

The work of the Dutch still-life painters who appear around 1620 corresponds to the tonal trend of the landscapists of van Goyen’s generation. Pieter Claesz and Willem Claesz. Heda, popularizers of the breakfast piece, are the principal representatives of this phase. Claesz, the father of the landscapist Nicolaes Berchem, was born at Berchem (probably the village near Antwerp). Heda’s origins are obscure. Both were primarily active at Haarlem and underwent similar stylistic developments.

Their early works show the influence of the older still-life painters, but they soon limited themselves to the description of a simple meal set near the corner of a table - some bread and cheese, a herring on a pewter dish, a glass of beer or wine, perhaps a silvery pewter vessel, and a white crumpled tablecloth - just enough to suggest a light breakfast or snack. These objects, which always look as if they had been touched by someone who is still close by, are no longer treated as isolated entities: they are grouped together, forming masses along a single diagonal axis. But more important, Pieter Claesz and Heda reacted to the comprehensive forces of light and atmosphere which envelop us and the things with which we live, and they found means to express their reactions to these forces as accurately, immediately, and intensely as possible. As a result, they seem to animate their simple subjects. With a new pictorial mode, they achieve a more dynamic spatial and compositional treatment.

The foreground of their unpretentious arrangements becomes spacious, and there is clear recession. Instead of vivid local colours, monochromatic harmonies with sensitive contrasts of valeurs of low intensity are favoured, without, however, a loss of the earlier regard for textural differentiation. From the point of view of composition and of colouristic, tonal, and spatial treatment the perfectly balanced still-lifes by Claesz and Heda are among the most satisfying Dutch paintings made during the century.

Claesz has a more vigorous touch than Heda. He was also a man of simpler tastes. Heda depicts oysters more frequently than herrings, and after 1640 his compositions became larger, richer, and more decorative. To obtain a more monumental effect, during his maturity Heda often abandons the traditional horizontal format for a vertical one. Ornate silver vessels and costly ‘fa�on de Venise’ glasses, at the time blown in the Netherlands as well as Venice, intensify the contrasts of valeurs, and touches of colour provided by the pink of sliced hams and ripe fruit are combined with an increased chiaroscuro.

During the 1630s Heda painted relatively simple still-life compositions of food and tableware in a restricted “monochrome” palette. His style changed little over the years, throughout his career he always painted still-lifes in a variety of sizes. Around the mid-1650s, he produced a number of fairly large still-lifes. Their basic composition do not differ substantially from earlier examples. he appears to have stepped back, away from his subject, and the resulting effect gives a feeling of spaciousness, especially around the table-top that support the still-life. The present painting from 1654 is the earliest known example.

The desire to immortalize precious objects is demonstrated quite clearly in the elegant works of Willem Claesz. Heda. The present large canvas is a mature example of what is known as the Haarlem “monochrome banquet piece”.

The painting came from the abbot’s quarters at St Peter’s Abbey, Ghent. It is signed and dated left on the handle of the pewter jug: HEDA / 1634.

This painting is typical of Heda’s work in the mid-1630s. He painted similar designs by 1630s, and closely related groups of objects by 1632. Similar compositions and motifs were painted by Pieter Claesz at about the same time.

The painting is a so-called sumptuous or luxurious still-life. Heda’s still-lifes gradually became fuller after 1640: the number of objects grew and they stood closer together. The colours also became richer. Heda was a master at rendering different reflections of light.