A gilt cup and cover, a roemer, a façon-de-venise glass, peaches, oranges and a peeled lemon in a porcelain bowl on a partially draped table

Willem Kalf was one of the most significant and successful Dutch still-life painters of the 17^th century. Immensely celebrated in his lifetime, his virtuoso ability to create the illusion of reality in paint has inspired comparisons of his work to that of Vermeer and ensured that Kalf’s reputation, unlike that of most Dutch still-life painters, never waned. Kalf was born in Rotterdam and travelled to Paris in the late 1630s and resided there until 1646, when he returned permanently to the Netherlands. Despite his close contact with contemporary French still-life painters, such as Jacques Linard (1597-1645), their paintings left comparatively little trace on Kalf’s activity in the period. Kalf’s elegantly composed still lifes brimming with costly objects arranged on a partially draped table, however, appear to have had a lasting influence on French still-life painters like Pierre Dupuis (1610-1682) and Meiffren Conte (circa 1630-1705) and were subsequently admired by painters like Antoine Coypel (1661-1722), who offered unreserved praise for the 'object imitated after nature' and noted that Kalf spoke 'the language of painting as well as Giorgione and Titian' (quoted in C.B. Bailey, 'Surveying Genre in Eighteenth-Century French Painting', The Age of Watteau, Chardin, and Fragonard: Masterpieces of French Genre Painting, exhibition catalogue, Ottawa, Washington and Berlin, 2003, p. 18). Employing a relatively restricted palette, Kalf became the leading painter of pronkstilleven (sumptuous and ornate still lifes), of which the present painting is an excellent example. In these works, rare and extravagant objects seem to emerge from dark backgrounds as if lit by flickering light, and are painted with such skill that, writing in 1797, the German poet Johann van Goethe remarked that to view a painting by Kalf was `to understand in what sense art is superior to nature and what the spirit of mankind imparts to objects, which it view with creative eyes. For me, at least, there is no question but that should I have the choice of the golden vessels or the picture, I would choose the picture' (`Zur Erinnerung des Stëdelschen Kabinetts’, 19 August 1797).

Kalf seems to have acted as an appraiser as well as a dealer in objets d’art and engravings, and it has been suggested that he may have employed some of this stock in his paintings (see A.J. Adams, Dutch and Flemish Paintings from New York Private Collections, exhibition catalogue, New York, 1988, p. 76). Rather than arranging these objects on a table, Kalf probably produced drawings of individual objects which could then be employed as aids in developing his compositions. It is therefore unsurprising that several of the treasured items found in the present painting also appear in other paintings by Kalf. The silver platter, for instance, is likely the same as the one in several of his still lifes, including one in the Musée Crozatier, Le Puy-en-Velay. The silver-gilt covered cup – a ceremonial vessel known as a Buckelpokal (knobby goblet), likely produced in Augsburg or Nuremberg – is nearly identical to the ones seen in the paintings in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford and the State Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg. The Chinese porcelain blue and white bowl, which dates from the Wan-Li dynasty, appears repeatedly in Kalf's works produced in this period, such as that in the Statens Museum for Kunst, Copenhagen.

In a letter dated 8 July 1990, the renowned Kalf scholar Lucius Grisebach reconfirmed the attribution of the present painting, specifying that he considered it to be 'ein charakteristiches Stilleben Willem Kalfs aus seiner besten Zeit und in bester Qualität (a characteristic still life by Willem Kalf of his best period and of the finest quality)’. Grisebach furthermore revised his previous opinion regarding the painting’s condition, which he had stated in his 1974 catalogue raisonné (loc. cit.), explaining that he was misled by poor black and white photographs. Working from better, color images, in 1990 he recognized that the background details remained in good state, and that they are entirely representative of the 'charakteristischen Handschrift Willem Kalf (characteristic handling of Willem Kalf)’. Likewise, he affirmed that the signature, which he had previously questioned, corresponds to the type typically used by the artist around 1660 (a copy of this letter is available, upon request).

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer for endorsing the attribution to Kalf on the basis of photographs (written communication, 23 April 2025). Dr. Meijer considers the painting to be a good example of Kalf's works from around 1663.