A hock of ham, a knife with slices of ham and a peeled lemon on pewter dishes, with a wineglass, a roemer, a tazza, a lidded condiment jar and a breadroll on a draped table

A meticulous and careful painter in his youth, Heda's simply constructed compositions from the 1620s and 1630s composed around a linear frame, gave way in the 1640s to a more abundant style in which he arranged his objects in a seemingly casual way. In fact, these highly ordered breakfast 'bankejtes' still lifes are beautifully balanced, showcasing the artist's skill in creating relationships among everyday objects. In the present work he controls the composition by arranging the roemer, pewter plate and rumpled cloth closely together before a shifting grey background. As in the painting formerly in the De Labrouhe de Laborderie collection also executed in 1642, Heda's interest has shifted to schematic effects created by differing tones played around the juxtaposed objects (N.R.A. Vroom, A Modest Message as intimated by the painters of the 'monochrome blanketje'', Schiedam, 1980, II, p. 76, no. 368).