Willem Kalf is one of the most highly esteemed still life painters of the Dutch Golden Age, considered by his contemporaries to have elevated the genre to a degree of nobility matched or superseded only by the great Jan Davidsz. de Heem. His works were lauded by poets during his lifetime, and after his death the biographer Arnold Houbraken declared he had won ‘never-withering fame’,¹ while Gerard de Lairesse wrote that works by ‘the famous Kalf […] deserve the highest commendation’.² Such sumptuous and exquisitely-rendered paintings as the present work by Kalf appear very seldom on the market, and the unusual landscape format of this painting is rarer still. It dates to circa 1660, when Kalf was at the height of his career, working in Amsterdam and producing his most elaborate, richly-coloured and virtuosic depictions of highly precious and exotic objects which, through their very inclusion, rendered their painted forms sought-after treasures in themselves. The vanitas undertones in a painting like this would also have resonated with Kalf’s clients among the wealthy bourgeoisie, whose pride in their trading enterprises seems always to have been foiled by a desire for reminders of the ultimate triviality of worldly possessions.

The astonishing illusionistic quality of the variety of surfaces and textures that Kalf achieves in paintings from this time has led to comparisons between his technique and that of ‘The Master of Light’, Johannes Vermeer. Indeed, it is possible that both artists may have used the camera obscura to aid in their meticulous representations of light and colour. Around the largest objects on the marble ledge here are grouped a tall flute glass and another with a wide cup and a serpentine stem, just visible on the right. A fine porcelain bowl is precariously – though deliberately – balanced on the edge of a thick, luxuriant Persian carpet, so that we may see the delicate leaf and animal decoration of its interior, as well as its contents: the shell of the wedge cut from the melon beside it, and the lid of a shaker (the translucent body of which lies between the bowl and the melon), its metallic convex shape all the more skilfully described for the angle at which it is placed. Beneath this is a large silver salver with a wide decorative rim that catches the light, on which rest hazelnuts and a knife, its shiny glass handle projecting beyond the edge of the platter and the carpet so convincingly that one might reach out to seize it before it overbalances. Likewise overhanging the ledge is the key for the intricate gold watch with an open crystal lid, dangling on a silk ribbon.

The largest and most exotic part of the arrangement is the lidded Chinese ginger jar, decorated with the vivid blue underglaze of the transitional period, between the end of the Ming Dynasty (1644) and the start of the Kangxi Period (1662). These vessels were used to store preserved ginger, pickled nuts and pickled cloves, brought back from the tropics, and it seems probable that Kalf may have owned one of these costly porcelains himself and would vary the details of its appearance in his paintings. Unlike the jars in Kalf's other depictions, which are positioned to show the reserve panels illustrated with figures or foliage, this one is turned to display the area embellished with a foliate lotus tendril between the picture panels; the lid clearly shows the lozenge-shaped ‘painting’ symbol, and the three balls denoting ‘jewels’.

Part of the ginger jar's profile is seen through the glass bowl of a roemer half-filled with wine, into which a half-peeled lemon has been dipped (as was common practice at the time, to temper the sweetness of the drink), which occupies the centre of the composition. Kalf painted the same motif in four other, slightly smaller-scale upright still lifes, dating between 1656 and 1659.³ The light source that illuminates this assemblage emanates from the upper left, and is reflected in the smooth surfaces of the jar and the glass. It also highlights the bright yellow rind of the lemon draped over the rim of the roemer – thereby serving to define its translucent edge against the dark background – and picks up on the white pith of the semi-submerged fruit. The diffraction of light through the lemon-filled glass, which casts a dappled, yellow pattern on the side of the ginger jar, is perhaps the most poetic passage of this quietly eloquent painting.

Although this canvas was unknown to Lucius Grisebach when he compiled his catalogue of Kalf's works in 1974, when it came to his attention in 1982 he wrote a letter and certificate of expertise to the owner at the time, fully endorsing the attribution to the artist, and classifying this as the prime version of the composition, as opposed to the painting in the Musée du Louvre, Paris, which is now widely regarded as a (possibly) autograph replica of the present work.⁴ Grisebach dated this painting to about 1660, around the same date as the large, upright still lifes with ginger jars of 1658, such as the painting sold in these Rooms, 7 July 2021, lot 38, for £1,467,000 (fig. 1).⁵

¹ A. Houbraken, De groote schouburgh der Nederlantsche konstschilders en schilderessen, Amsterdam 1718–1721, vol. 2, pp. 218–20.

² G. de Lairesse, The Art of Painting in All its Branches, trans. W.M. Craig 1817, vol. 2, p. 183.

³ Dated 1656, Szépmüvészeti Múzeum, Budapest, inv. no. 3832; dated 1658, Staatliches Museum, Schwerin, inv. no. G77; dated 1659, location unknown; and undated, Universitets Konstsamling, Lund.

⁴ Inv. no. RF 796; https://collections.louvre.fr/ark:/53355/cl010063543

⁵ https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2021/old-masters-evening-sale/still-life-with-a-chinese-salt-jar-silver-objects; the other versions of this composition are in the Musée de Picardie, Amiens; the Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft; and, in a painting with some differences and dating to 1669, the Indianapolis Museum of Art.