The Still Life Paintings of Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680)

The still life paintings of the 17th century Dutch masters are a rich source of material for recreating many aspects of the domestic life of the period. They have no British equivalent, so it to these Dutch sources that we must turn for information about many of the things used in daily life. The Dutch were far ahead of the English in adopting new styles and ideas in all things, but Holland was a major trading partner and archaeological evidence shows that many of the artifacts we can see in Dutch paintings were also in use in England at the same time. We also get occasional glimpses of furniture, pottery, glass and pewter in English portrait paintings, and in the woodcuts used to illustrate books, and these support the idea that common English domestic implements differed little from their Dutch counterparts.

A selection of still life paintings by Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680) are used here as an introduction to the ways in which these paintings can help us to visualise some aspects of domestic life from almost four centuries ago. Heda frequently used the same objects in many paintings.

Rather than explain specific technical terms, I have provided links in the text to other web sites, many of them on the Wikipedia site. All links will open in a new browser window. You can view larger versions of the paintings that are used on the following pages at the Web Gallery of Art and at Wikipedia Commons. Clicking on any of the images in this article will link to the original larger versions on these external websites.