Still Life with Beer-pitcher and Orange
1633. Oil on panel.Not on display
As in the case of those two paintings (P02755 y P02756), Still Life with Beer-pitcher and Orange belongs to the typology defined by Vroom (1980) as monochrome banketje. Traditionally, this picture has been attributed to Willem Claesz. Heda. However, there are a number of stylistic aspects that distance it from the still lifes painted by this artist in the 1630s. Firstly, the monotone colouring based on green and grey-brown hues is in this case broken by the red used in the orange. Further, the orange, an atypical element in these banquets, only appears in Heda at a very late stage, in the 1660s. Likewise, the lack of harmony in the scale of the different objects depicted, as in the case of the beer-pitcher, the silver tazza and the Roemer-style goblet, is unusual in Willem Heda`s production but common in that of his son and pupil, Gerret Willemsz. Heda (1622/26-1649). The same is true of the other objects represented here. The base of the Roemer goblet is decorated with rounded rather than pointed prunts, which appear in no other still life that has so far been accepted as produced by Willem Heda, although it does feature in those of his son, as well as in the works of Pieter Claesz. (P02753). The type of beer pitcher featured here is only present in one Willem Heda still life, signed and dated in 1637 (Antwerp, Museum Mayer Van den Bergh). There are several replicas of this painting -one of which is signed and dated heda 1640 (whereabouts unknown)- which Vroom believes to be mostly produced by the son.
All of this would appear to suggest that this still life may actually be the work of Gerret Willemsz. Heda (Posada Kubissa, T.: Pintura holandesa en el Museo Nacional del Prado. Catálogo razonado, 2009, p. 304).
