JAN DAVIDSZ. DE HEEM (UTRECHT 1606-1684 ANTWERP) – STILL LIFE. UPDATE: THIS MADE £3,670,000
A pie on a pewter plate, a partially peeled lemon and overturned silver spoon on a pewter plate, crayfish and shrimp in a Wanli bowl, fruit, a walnut and an oyster on a pewter plate, a basket of fruit, a fluted glass, a silver-gilt cup, a roemer, an overturned silver tazza on a strong box, a silver ewer and a bread roll all on a partially draped table with a curtain beyond are in this marvellous oil on canvas signed and dated ‘J. De Heem f. A° 1649’. Estimated at £3 million – £5 million it will be a highlight at Christie’s Old Masters Evening Sale on July 1 during Classic Week in London.
This appetising work – painted at a time when De Heem produced some of his finest works – reprises themes from an extraordinary group of four large-scale paintings that the artist executed earlier in the decade, but with greater refinement of execution, perhaps in part due to its more manageable scale. Two of these paintings are today at the Louvre (inv. no. 1321) and Musée des Beaux-Arts, Brussels (inv. no. K 1878/5). A third is in a private collection, and the fourth was sold for a world auction record at Christie’s in London on 15 December 2020.