Willem Claesz Heda

Still Life with a Gilded Beer Tankard

1634

Inscriptions

  • signature and date, lower right:HEDA . / 1634
  • signature, below that (falsely):Johan d. Heem. ƒ. 1640

Technical notes

The support is a single horizontally grained oak panel bevelled on all sides. It may have been cut down slightly on the left and right sides. The back of the panel is rather roughly finished. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1617. The panel could have been ready for use by 1632, but a date in or after 1634 is more likely. The thin and smoothly applied ground is light in colour. The paint was smoothly applied, with impasto for the highlights and to indicate the textures of some of the objects.

Scientific examination and reports

  • dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 11 december 1998
  • technical report: M. van de Laar, RMA, 26 augustus 2004

Condition

Fair. The thick varnish is severely discoloured.

Conservation

  • conservator unknown, 1918: signature and date revealed

Provenance

...; first recorded in the museum in 18091Coll. cat. 1809, p. 128, no. 112.

ObjectNumber: SK-A-137

The artist

Biography

Willem Claesz Heda (Haarlem 1594 - Haarlem 1680)

Willem Claesz Heda was born on 14 December 1594 as the third child of the Haarlem city architect Claes Pietersz Bagijn (1558-1632) and Anna Claesdr Rooswijk. He owed the surname Heda to his mother’s family. On 9 June 1619 he married Cornelia Jacobsdr, daughter of the Haarlem brewer Jacob Philipsz van Rijck. Since he was related to various Haarlem brewers’ families, he became professionally involved in the beer industry. He owned a few houses in Haarlem and seems to have been prosperous. In 1616 he became a member of the St George Civic Guard, in which he was a corporal from 1642 to 1645.

Nothing is known about Heda’s artistic training. He probably joined the Guild of St Luke in 1614, serving as warden in 1631-32, 1637-38, 1643 and 1651, and as dean in 1644 and 1652-53. He trained several painters in his workshop: Arnoldus Beresteyn (in 1637), Hendrik Heerschop (in 1642), Maerten Boelema de Stomme (1611-44) and his youngest son Gerrit Heda (c. 1624-49), who used the signature ‘jonge Heda’ on some of his works between 1642 and 1644.

Willem Claesz Heda started his career as a history painter with a Crucifixion triptych of 1626,2Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 8 May 2001, no. 44 (ill.). but he was also known as a portrait painter. He and Pieter Claesz were mentioned as painters of banquet pieces in Samuel Ampzing’s Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem of 1628. Almost all his known paintings are still lifes, mostly breakfast and banquet pieces, with a few vanitas scenes. The compositions are often similar to those in the still lifes by Pieter Claesz. Most of his paintings are signed, and many are dated between 1628 and 1664.

Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007

References
Ampzing 1628, p. 372; Schneider in Thieme/Becker XVI, 1923, pp. 215-16; Van der Willigen/Meijer 2003, p. 103; Van Thiel-Stroman 2006, pp. 189-95

Entry

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.3Segal (in Delft etc. 1988, pp. 137, 216, note 35) refers to a similar tankard made by the Leipzig silversmith Elias Geyer around 1610 in Nuremberg.

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.4See Vroom 1980, II, pp. 66-71, nos. 228, 229, 334, 335, 337, 339a, 340, 351a, 370, 375, 378. The inside of the tazza can also be seen in the painting of 1632 in Madrid, and in that of 1634 in Rotterdam; Vroom 1980, I, p. 72, fig. 88, no. 334, and Vroom 1980, II, p. 78, no. 378, respectively. See also Middelkoop in Perth etc. 1997, p. 52, note 2.

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.5The catalogues from 1853 to 1876 state that it came from the Van der Pot collection, which was changed to the Van Heteren Gevers collection from 1880 onwards (also in Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 159, no. 112), but neither collection contained a painting with this subject. 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.

Literature

Vroom 1945, pp. 58, 72, no. 188; Vroom 1980, I, p. 54, II, p. 68, no. 341; Segal in Delft etc. 1988, pp. 137, 238, no. 32; Gemar-Koeltzsch 1995, II, pp. 422-23, no. 157/8

Collection catalogues

1809, p. 28, no. 112 (as Jan Davidszoon de Heem); 1843, p. 24, no. 111 (as Jan Davidszoon de Heem; ‘in good condition’); 1853, p. 12, no. 100 (as Jan Davidszoon de Heem); 1880, pp. 119-20, no. 117 (as Jan Davidszoon de Heem); 1885, p. 17, no. 117 (as Jan Davidszoon de Heem); 1887, p. 30, no. 232 (as Pieter Claesz); 1903, p. 72, no. 692 (as Pieter Claesz); 1918, p. 378, suppl. no. 1120; 1934, p. 121, no. 1120a; 1960, pp. 123-24, no. 1121 A 1; 1976, p. 262, no. A 137; 2007, no. 119

Citation

J.P. Filedt Kok, 2007, 'Willem Claesz. Heda, Still Life with a Gilded Beer Tankard, 1634', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8635

(accessed 30 April 2025 07:45:38).

Footnotes

  • 1Coll. cat. 1809, p. 128, no. 112.
  • 2Sale, Amsterdam (Sotheby’s), 8 May 2001, no. 44 (ill.).
  • 3Segal (in Delft etc. 1988, pp. 137, 216, note 35) refers to a similar tankard made by the Leipzig silversmith Elias Geyer around 1610 in Nuremberg.
  • 4See Vroom 1980, II, pp. 66-71, nos. 228, 229, 334, 335, 337, 339a, 340, 351a, 370, 375, 378. The inside of the tazza can also be seen in the painting of 1632 in Madrid, and in that of 1634 in Rotterdam; Vroom 1980, I, p. 72, fig. 88, no. 334, and Vroom 1980, II, p. 78, no. 378, respectively. See also Middelkoop in Perth etc. 1997, p. 52, note 2.
  • 5The catalogues from 1853 to 1876 state that it came from the Van der Pot collection, which was changed to the Van Heteren Gevers collection from 1880 onwards (also in Moes/Van Biema 1909, p. 159, no. 112), but neither collection contained a painting with this subject.