A nautilus cup with a silver salt, a red clay pot decorated with a prancing stag holding ostrich feathers on a partially draped table with a blue and white porcelain bowl, a knife, oyster shells and a piece of manuscript

We are grateful to Fred Meijer of the RKD for the attribution on inspection of the original, and for suggesting a date around the late 1650s, or early 1660s.

Along with his contemporary, Pieter Claesz., the painter Willem Claesz. Heda was the originator of a type of painting often referred to as the monochrome 'banketje' or breakfast still life (the word monochrome referring in fact to the range of tones rather than colours), that inspired a whole school of painting in mid 17th century Haarlem. A meticulous and careful painter from his youth, Heda's simply constructed compositions from the 1620s and 1630s, composed around a linear frame, developed in the 1640s into a more abundant style in which he arranged his objects in a seemingly casual way. In fact, these highly ordered 'bankejtes' are beautifully balanced, showcasing the artist's skill in creating relationships among everyday objects. From circa 1645, Heda's taste changed towards the inclusion of a more abundant grouping of boldly decorated objects, designed to easily catch the eye of the viewer, as seen in the present lot. Heda seems to have been reasonably affluent, and his work was much in demand during his lifetime; Rubens owned two paintings by him, and copies after Heda appear in other Antwerp inventories. Jan de Bray (see lot 58) painted his portrait in 1678 (untraced).