Willem Claesz. Heda, Still Life with a Lobster

Although apparently casually displayed, the objects in this still life would immediately have suggested wealth and extravagance to a seventeenth-century viewer. The cloths have a satin-like sheen, soft to the touch, and the objects on them are all expensive luxuries in a carefully designed display to show wealth. They also demonstrate Heda’s skills in painting textures, objects projecting out of the picture towards us and subtle, rich colours.

The objects have been chosen not just because they are rare and precious – they also show how Dutch merchants brought exotic items from far-flung parts of the globe. The olives and lemons come from the Mediterranean, the blue-and-white porcelain dish from China and the peppercorns from the East Indies. Other items originate in the Dutch Republic but were still very expensive: the lobster, the stand supporting the roemer (the stubby glass with florets on the stem) and the elaborately crafted gold goblet with a Roman warrior, possibly the god Mars, on top. The waterfowl perched on the terracotta pot hints at the dish inside it, but is also – wings open in an impressive display – a visible symbol of affluence. Grains of rock salt are shown glittering like jewels in a silver holder.

Such displays of wealth were sometimes a reminder of the transience of earthly belongings, but they are certainly evidence of the lavish lifestyles of Dutch merchants during the seventeenth century. But there is perhaps a hint of time passing. The peppercorns have been tipped from a crushed paper tube, which started out as a cone. This was the usual method of parcelling up spices and in paintings sometimes, as in this case, made from a page taken from an almanac. Heda shows it in this picture as trashed, reminding the viewer of its ephemeral nature. In another painting, Still life: Pewter and Silver Vessels and a Crab, the almanac cone is pristine, but the peppercorns still spill out.

Heda’s ability to represent real objects in paint is clear – things gleam, reflect, or glow. The light, coming mainly from the left, catches the bird’s wing; two quick stokes of the brush reveal a tall flute glass almost invisible against the dark background. In several places, light reveals wine or water seen through glass (an artist’s skill in showing this phenomenon was particularly valued at the time). Two pewter plates project over the edge of the table, while the tube containing a scroll and a carving knife point away from us on diagonal lines, demonstrating Heda’s command of perspective in different ways.

Embroidered on the tablecloth is a cipher that seems to refer to a merchants' guild, perhaps implying that the painting was commissioned by such a guild. The handsome red lobster with the beady eye, placed with such prominence, perhaps suggests a connection with the sea as the source of their wealth.