This imposing painting displays the remains of a feast on a sumptuously laden table. The care with which the precious vessels were arranged prior to the meal is still evident despite the disarray of the white linen tablecloth, the snuffed-out candle, the tipped-over silver tazza and glass roemer (glass for white wine), and the broken roemer lying on a pewter dish. The focal point of the meal has been the mince pie, which, flavored with currants, raisins, and exotic spices from the Far East, was a special dish reserved for holidays and lavish banquets. Freshly cut slices of lemon added to its flavor. Oysters, seasoned with vinegar from the shell-shaped Venetian glass decanter, complemented the meal. Salt, prominently displayed in the silver salt cellar, and pepper, contained within the paper cone made from an almanac page, were expensive seasonings available to the guests as well. Imported olives and a simple roll rounded out the feast, which would have been washed down with ample glasses of beer.
This banquet piece, one of the largest known still lifes by Willem Claesz Heda, may well have been a commissioned work, although nothing is known of its early provenance. Because of its scale, Heda painted it on canvas rather than on a wood support, which was his norm. Partly because the original canvas has never been lined, the remarkable sheen of glass, pewter, silver, and gilded bronze, for which Heda is so admired, is extremely well preserved. The rich impastos of the lemon peel hanging over the table’s edge likewise have maintained their character. Adding to the harmonious whole is the soft shimmer of the white linen tablecloth as light catches the nuances of the fabric’s texture.
Despite the apparent reality of the scene, which is reinforced by the lifelike scale of the objects, this composition is an artificial construct and does not record the aftermath of an actual meal. By 1635, the date of this work, Heda had already executed a number of similar, albeit smaller still lifes that include many of the same objects in different arrangements and combinations. The silver tazza, for example, appears in three earlier paintings, one dated 1632 and two dated 1634. It also occurs in two still lifes from 1635, including the Banquet Piece with Oysters in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam [fig. 1]
[fig. 1] Willem Claesz Heda, Banquet Piece with Oysters, 1635, oil on panel, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. The broken roemer recurs in one of the still lifes from 1634. The Venetian glass decanter, the salt cellar, the large glass roemer, and the pewter pitcher all appear in other works (see especially the Banquet Piece with Oysters).
As far as one can determine, Heda intended to bring together food and objects that might be found on a festive occasion and present them in a harmonious and convincing manner. The composition is arranged in a broad triangular form, its apex defined by the magnificent gilt bronze goblet, whose decorative top is surmounted by the figure of Triton. Heda enlivened his scene through the suggestion of light reflecting off the various objects, and gave the whole immediacy by situating the table in the frontal picture plane. By placing the lemon rind, the pewter plates, and the black-handled knife over the table’s front edge, he created the illusion that they actually protrude into the viewer’s space. Although these compositional ideas had been current in Dutch and Flemish still-life painting from the first decades of the century, Heda utilized them here with unprecedented forcefulness and conviction.
Heda carefully selected the objects in this painting to convey a general thematic message, one frequently encountered in still-life paintings of the time, that the sensual pleasures of the feast and the luxuries of the world are only temporary and not eternal. The snuffed-out candle indicates not only the end of the meal, but also the transience of life itself. The same message is expressed by the broken glass and the page of the almanac used to hold the pepper. Theological issues current in both Catholic and Protestant thought underlay these warnings: sensual pleasures threaten to distract man from the message of Christ’s sacrifice and from the overriding significance of God’s word. Jan Davidsz de Heem (Dutch, 1606 - 1684), a Catholic artist, explicitly conveyed this Christian message in Flowers with Crucifix and Skull, c. 1665 by juxtaposing a crucifix with a luscious bouquet of flowers, and by including a text that laments that man does not observe the “most beautiful flower of all” [fig. 2]
[fig. 2] Jan Davidsz de Heem and Nicolaes van Veerendael, Flowers with Crucifix and Skull, c. 1665, oil on canvas, Alte Pinakothek, Munich. Photo: bpk, Berlin / Alte Pinakothek, Bayerische Staatsgemäldesammlungen, Munich / Lutz Braun / Art Resource, NY. Instead of focusing on the message of Christ’s sacrifice, man is distracted by temporal pleasures such as flowers and fruit. Heda expresses the same idea in a more subtle way. Here, while man has enjoyed the delights of exotic spices, rich meats, and oysters, and dined with expensive and finely wrought objects made of rare materials, he has overlooked the most fundamental nourishment of all, the simple bread roll in the foreground. Given bread’s traditional eucharistic connotations and its central placement on a plate that extends into the viewer’s space, its untouched state is neither accidental nor without iconographical significance.
Arthur K. Wheelock Jr.
April 24, 2014
