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| Still Life with Oysters, a Silver Tazza, and Glassware |
Artist:Willem Claesz Heda (Dutch, Haarlem? 1594–1680 Haarlem)
Date:1635
Medium:Oil on wood
Dimensions:19 5/8 x 31 3/4 in. (49.8 x 80.6 cm)
Classification:Paintings
Credit Line:From the Collection of Rita and Frits Markus, Bequest of Rita Markus, 2005
A table laid with oysters, a lemon, and beer invites the beholder to associate visual and culinary pleasure. But a closer looks reveals broken glass and a cone of paper—intended to hold spices—that has been torn from an almanac, reminding us of our swiftly passing days. Many seventeenth-century Dutch still lifes, produced in a Calvinist culture deeply ambivalent about its material riches, contain such intimations of mortality. At the same time, they provided artists like Claesz Heda with the opportunity to show off their skill in the virtuoso rendering of different surfaces.
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