While many of Willem Claesz. Heda’s still lifes from the
1640s and beyond become elaborate and even grandiose, others, such as this one
and a similar small-scale composition in the Rijksmuseum, entitled Still
life with a broken glass (SK-C-610; fig. 1), retain the informal simplicity of his
early works.

This composition features several of the artist’s favourite
still-life components, carefully selected and viewed against a plain background
to impress upon the viewer the full range of his mastery of light and of
texture: the undulating skin of the lemon, the murky sheen of the plates
contrasted with the lustre of the tazza, the transparent glass with iridescent
liquid, reflections hinting at the unseen room.

Another example close to the present work, with the same arrangement of large roemer, overturned tazza and half-peeled lemons, was sold at auction in 2012. If the dating of 1630 on that picture is correct, Heda’s revisiting of more pared-down compositions lasted for twenty years or more. In these works, it is not the colour that defines the objects – Heda’s palette is muted, almost monochrome – but rather the reflected and refracted light.

The silver tazza in the painting has recently been identified as silver tazza made in Amsterdam in 1618 which bears an unidentified clover maker’s mark. Heda evidently owned the piece as he included it in several of his most celebrated banquet scenes, including the present work and three further works at the Rijksmuseum (SK-A-4830, SK-C-1694 and SK-A-137). Heda’s tazza was recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art, Washington (figs 2-3).

Fig. 1 - Willem Claesz. Heda, Still life with a broken glass, signed and dated 1642, oil on panel, 58.5 x 67.5 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam, SK-C-610

Figs. 2-3 - Tazza, 1618. National Gallery of Art, Washington DC, 2023.52.1