Willem Claesz. Heda
Provenance
William Martin Conway, 1st Baron Conway of Allington (1856 – 1937).
The Hon. Mrs. Agnes E. Conway Horsfield (1885 – 1950), by descent from the above.
Her Estate Sale; Sotheby’s, London, 31 Jan. 1951, lot 31 (£400).
P. de Boer, Amsterdam (stock no. 4806), acquired from the above sale.
Polak, New York, NY, acquired from the above in 1951.
Anon. Sale (‘The Property of a Gentleman’); Christie’s, London, 7 July 1978, lot 216.
Private collection, Belgium, acquired at the above sale; thence by descent to the present owner.
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, retain the informal simplicity of his early works.
Another example close to the Schuybroek one, 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. Heda’s tazza was recently acquired by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.