Breakfast Still Life
Willem Claesz. Heda (Dutch, 1594-1680)
1647
- Medium
- Oil on panel
- Classification
- Painting
- Dimensions
- 52 × 80.1 × 0.9 cm (20 1/2 × 31 9/16 × 3/8 in.); Framed: 69.9 × 97.8 × 7 cm (27 1/2 × 38 1/2 × 2 3/4 in.)
- Culture
- Netherlands
- Museum
- Art Institute of Chicago, Painting and Sculpture of Europe
- Credit line
- Bequest of Donald and Carol Asher
- Rights
- Public domain (CC0), as the museum states it.
- Who can see it
- Little Ones profiles and older: it shows gentle subjects for the very young. How works are placed
View at the Art Institute of Chicago
About this work
This still life may look like a snapshot of an abandoned meal, but the scene is carefully arranged, revealing the artist’s ability to create complex but harmonious compositions with a limited palette of neutral colors. William Claesz. Heda balanced the horizontal pewter chargers in the foreground with the vertical glass vessels and salt-cellar in the background and positioned the overturned ewer diagonally to connect the two planes. Faint creases in the tablecloth, plates hanging precariously off the table’s edge, and the window reflected on the pitcher’s surface demonstrate the artist’s observant eye as well as his virtuosity in handling paint.
Description © Art Institute of Chicago, CC BY 4.0
