Lot 39: WILLEM CLAESZ. HEDA

WILLEM CLAESZ. HEDA HAARLEM CIRCA 1596 - 1680 STILL LIFE WITH A ROEMER, A FLUTED WINE-GLASS, A SILVER GOBLET, A BLUE-AND-WHITE PORCELAIN BOWL FILLED WITH GREEN OLIVES, A PARTLY PEELED LEMON AND A KNIFE, ALL ARRANGED WITHIN A STONE NICHE signed and dated lower centre: HEDA. FECIT./ 1649. oil on oak panel 92 by 70 cm.

Believed to have been in family ownership since the 19th Century or earlier, and probably the picture described in a manuscript family inventory, undated, but annotated before 1931, as one of two small still life paintings: 2 kleinere Olgemalde (Stilleben) among six paintings in the Kabinett;
Thence by descent until sold ("The Property of a Noble Family"), London, Sotheby's, 9 July 2009, lot 134.

We are grateful to Fred G. Meijer of the R.K.D., The Hague, who has inspected the panel in the original, for confirming that this unpublished painting is a typical example of Heda's work at this date. The dark background and niche setting are unusual, but elements within the picture are found in other works of around this date: the roemer and overturned silver beaker for example are found in Heda's 1649 upright still life in the National Gallery, London. We are further grateful to Dr. Martina Brunner Bulst for confirming on the basis of a transparency that this is an autograph work by Heda.

1. See N.R.A. Vroom, A Modest Message..., vol. II, Schiedam 1980, p. 35, no. 50, reproduced.