page_title: Willem Claesz. Heda
section_title: Works
hierarchical_section_title: Willem Claesz. Heda / Works
context_page_description: Willem Claesz. Heda was a Dutch Golden Age artist from the city of Haarlem devoted exclusively to the painting of still life. He is known for his innovation of the late breakfast genre of still life painting.
context_section_description: Willem was a contemporary and comrade of Dirck Hals, akin to him in pictorial touch and technical execution. But Heda was more careful and finished than Hals, showing considerable skill and taste in the arrangement and colouring of his chased cups, beakers and tankards of both precious and inferior metals. Heda was also associated with the Haarlem artist and fellow still life painter, Floris van Dyck. In his work, Harlemias, the Dutch poet Theodorus Schrevelius acknowledged exceptional skill at his genre of painting. Heda and his contemporary and fellow still life painter, Floris van Dyck, were "held in high esteem by the community as the best at painting their genre."
  As a painter of "ontbijt" or breakfast pieces, he is often compared to his contemporary Pieter Claesz. One of Heda's early masterpieces, dated 1623 and in Alte Pinakothek, Munich, is as homely as a later one of 1651 in the Liechtenstein Gallery at Vienna. A more luxurious repast is a "Luncheon" in the Augsburg Gallery, dated 1644.
  In Spain, The Prado Museum there is a set of three of its still lifes, while in the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, a Still Life with fruit cake and various objects from around 1634, oil on panel is displayed. The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando  also preserves a Still Life with a beer mug, lemon and crab, oil on canvas, dated 1633. Finally, The Museum of Cadiz owns a Still Life (oil on panel, 1663) whose signature was discovered after cleaning in 1953.
caption: Still Life with a silver tazza, a roemer and oysters. Prado Museum, Madrid.
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