Still life with a Gilded Beer Tankard, Willem Claesz Heda, 1634 – (Willem Claesz Heda) ◄ Previous Next ►

Artist: Willem Claesz Heda

Date: 1634

Size: 46 x 62 cm

Technique: Oil On Panel

This is another typical example of a Heda breakfast piece laid out on a green cloth with the classic combination of the large rummer, a tazza on its side and a pewter plate with a lemon, to which has been added a gilded silver beer tankard with a lid. The tankard, which appears only once in Heda’s oeuvre, is probably of German manufacture.3 The tazza decorated with petal motifs appears in many of Heda’s paintings dated between 1632 and 1654, including the Still Life with Gilt Goblet (SK-A-4830) of 1635 in the Rijksmuseum.4 The present painting, which is listed in the first collection catalogue of 1809 as the work of Jan Davidsz de Heem, is one of the museum’s earliest acquisitions. It was transferred from the Nationale Konst-Gallery in The Hague to Amsterdam in 1808, but unfortunately its earlier provenance is unknown.5 Bredius had pointed out in the 1887 Rijksmuseum catalogue that the Johannes de Heem signature was a later addition, and he attributed the painting to Pieter Claesz. It was restored in or shortly before 1918, revealing Heda’s signature and the date 1634. The names of both Pieter Claesz and Willem Heda had fallen into oblivion in the 18th century, and the addition of De Heem’s signature was undoubtedly intended to make the painting more marketable. Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007 See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 119.