Old Master Paintings

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Lot 13
  • 13

Pieter Claesz. Probably Berchem 1596/7 - 1660 Haarlem

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Description

  • Pieter Claesz.
  • Still life with smoking implements, a gilt glass holder, a violin and a pile of books: 'The five senses'
  • signed with initials lower left, on the cartellino: PC
  • oil on panel

Provenance

Ragondet collection, Brussels, 1993.

Exhibited

Haarlem, Frans Hals Museum, 27 November 2004 - 4 April 2005; Zurich, Kunsthaus, 22 April - 22 August 2005; Washington, National Gallery of Art, 18 September - 31 December 2005, Pieter Claesz. Master of Haarlem Still Life, no. 4 (although described in the catalogue as exhibited in Haarlem and Zurich only, this picture was exhibited in Washington as well).

Literature

M. Brunner-Bulst, Pieter Claesz. ... Kritischer Oeuvrekatalog, Lingen 2004, pp. 185, 209-210, cat. no. 8, reproduced in colour p. 15;
M. Brunner-Bulst, in P. Biesboer etc., Pieter Claesz. Master of Haarlem Still life, exhibition catalogue, Zwolle 2004, p. 115, cat. no. 4, reproduced, and in colour on p. 20.

Catalogue Note

This recently discovered picture is a key early work by Pieter Claesz.  Datable circa 1623, only two years after his first dated work (a still life in the old Haarlem tradition of Floris van Dijck), this picture represents a major step forward in the evolution of still life painting.  The viewpoint is much lower, and the composition is built along a diagonal from the bottom left corner, with the eye led from the tobacco box and the piece of paper beneath it, along the stem of the clay pipe and the near-parallel neck of the violin, which is raised up on open volumes of sheet music, accentuating the diagonal.  The overall compositional balance, disturbed by this strong diagonal, is restored by the firm repoussoir upright of the gilded bekerschroef anchoring the left edge of the composition, the reversed diagonal of the second clay pipe, and the chafing dish with its glowing coals beyond.  It is thus a beautifully ordered composition, but a sophisticated one, robust enough so that the open musical manuscript falling out of the composition denies it a purely hermetic quality, without disturbing the eye.

What has not been appreciated in the recent publications discussing this picture is that it depicts the Five Senses, perhaps the first single still life painting ever to do so.1  The magnificent bekerschroef, or rather the half-filled wine glass it supports, represents Taste.  The partly readable half-opened letter is Sight.  The chafing-dish giving off heat is Touch, the sense of feeling.  The tobacco box and the two clay pipes represent Smell, and the Violin and the volumes of sheet music obviously depict Hearing.  The transitoriness of these Senses carries obvious Vanitas connotations, and the elegaic mood of the painting is one that emphasizes the temporary nature of life and its pleasures.

In this respect this painting echoes a print by Theodor Matham, also originating in Haarlem, bearing the legend: VANITAS, which is also an obvious source for the composition, as Martina Brunner-Bulst has observed.2  it shows musical instruments and an open volume of sheet music arranged with other objects on a table top.  Matham's print dates from 1622, only one year earlier than the likely date of this painting.  The dating to 1623 is also supported by Pieter Claesz.'s only dated work from that year, a still life in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, which incorporates similar elements - musical instruments and a chafing dish.3  The Louvre painting is also indebted to Matham's engraving.


1.  A Jan Lievens figural composition of the Five Senses, datable circa 1624, is on loan from a private collection to the Lakenhal, Leiden.
2.  See Brunner-Bulst, Kritischer Oeuvrekatalog, p. 147, reproduced fig. 22.
3.  Idem, p. 209, cat. no. 7, reproduced.