Still Life with a Tankard, a Plate of Oysters and Glasses on a Table
1636
Heda specialized in still-life paintings focusing on food and vessels for eating and drinking, but his stately images appeal as much to the viewer’s eye as appetite. Here, the architectural rigor of the display, which suggests well-being and order, is only slightly ruffled by a few disruptions—a fallen glass cruet, a tilted silver bowl, scattered hazelnut shells. Contemporary viewers would have recognized these irregularities as a reminder that nothing is permanent. The monochrome palette was fashionable in still lifes and landscape paintings in Haarlem, from 1620 to 1640.
Oil on wood panel
19 11/16 x 32 7/8 in. (50cm. x 83.5cm)
Bequest of Theiline Pigott Scheumann
2022.20
Provenance: [Anonymous sale, Paris, France, Palais Galliera, Dec. 7, 1967, lot no. 136, reproduced (as dated 1656)]; {Jean Thèves, Saint-Nom-la-Bretêche, France}; [Anonymous sale, Hôtel George V, Paris, Ader Picard Tajan, Apr. 14, 1989, lot no. 219, reproduced]; purchased at auction by [Otto Naumann, Ltd., New York, and Derek Johns, Harari & Johns Ltd., London, 1989]; sold to Theiline (1931-2021) and Doug Scheumann (1936-2016), Seattle, Washington, 1989; Estate of Theiline Pigott Scheumann; bequeathed to Seattle Art Museum, Seattle, Washington, 2022