Willem Claesz Heda (Dutch, 1594-c. 1680) Still Life with Tazza, Peeled Lemon, and Roemer

Description:

Willem Claesz Heda (Dutch, 1594-c. 1680)

Still Life with Tazza, Peeled Lemon, and Roemer, 1630
Unsigned.
Oil on cradled panel, 15 1/2 x 22 1/2 in. (39.4 x 57.2 cm),framed.
Condition: Retouch including to repair two horizontal cracks to the panel, fine craquelure, surface grime.

Literature: Bode, Wilhelm von, Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky (Frankfurt a. Main: Joseph Baer & Co., 1909),cat. no. 12 (illus.).

Provenance: J.M. Heberle, Cologne, Gemälde-Sammlung, May 19, 1890, Lot 45 (illus.); to the collection of Oscar Huldschinsky, Berlin; Paul Cassirer und Hugo Helbing, Berlin, Die Sammlung Oscar Huldschinsky, May 10, 1928, Lot 12; (...); to the collection of Jack Partridge, Maine, c. 1950s; through to a private Maine collection.

N.B. The still life at hand was reviewed via photographs by Dr. Fred Meijer, Curator, Department of Old Netherlandish Painting, Netherland Institute for Art History (RKD),who has determined the work to be by the hand of Willem Claesz Heda, painted in 1630. Dr. Meijer has provided the provenance up to the 1928 auction record.

Haarlem painter Willem Claesz Heda is known for his keenly observed still life compositions rendered in delicate gray and silvery tones and set against grey-green backgrounds. Dr. Meijer noted that the material and handling of the work at hand are fully consistent with what we can expect of a Heda from 1630. The composition is very close to that of a dated still life by Heda from 1630 that was handled by H.M. Cramer in The Hague during the mid-1970s. A comparison of the two works would suggest that the current version may have been cropped by a few centimeters at the top and probably also a little to the left.


Estimate $30,000-50,000

Retouch to two hairline horizontal splits in the panel, one split located 3 3/4 inches down from the top and the second located 5 1/8 inches up from the bottom. Line of retouch is about 1/8 to 1/4 in. thick in most areas along the splits. In the u.l. quadrant the retouch becomes more broadly brushed with washes of retouch and includes scattered dots to center left. There is further subtle retouch to define the edges of the rim of the tazza and of the roemer, with further minor retouch to the shadowed area of the plate on the right. Fine stable craquelure overall. Surface grime as well as dots of accretions/foreign matter most evident in the shadows of the green cloth.

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