Jan Davidsz de Heem

Dutch, 1606 - 1684

Jan Davidsz de Heem was born in Utrecht to a Catholic family. In 1626 he moved to Leiden, where he married his first wife, Aletta van Weede, a native of Utrecht. Nearly a decade later, in 1635, De Heem moved to Antwerp and entered its Saint Luke’s Guild. A year after the death of Aletta in 1643, the painter married Anna Ruckers, a native of Antwerp. Although he would spend many years in his wife’s hometown, De Heem also spent periods of time in the north, including an extended stay in Utrecht in 1649. He also resided in Utrecht between 1667 and 1672, and he rejoined that city’s painter’s guild in 1669. Following the French invasion of Utrecht in 1672, De Heem returned to Antwerp, where he lived until his death in 1684.

The few works known from De Heem’s first Utrecht period resemble those of the still-life painter Ast, Balthasar van der, who may have been his teacher. While active in Leiden, De Heem painted tonal still lifes with vanitas subjects—books, writing and smoking implements, musical instruments, skulls, and hourglasses—that relate to works by contemporary Leiden artists David Bailly (1584–1657) and Harmen Steenwijck (1612–after 1656). Following De Heem’s move to Antwerp, the work of Flemish still-life painter Daniel Seghers (1590–1661) provided an important model. De Heem’s compositions became more elaborate, and he depicted bouquets and garlands of flowers, baskets of fruit, and various motifs such as glasses, insects, and drapery with great illusionistic veracity. Occasionally he incorporated background views to a distant landscape or seascape.

During his long and productive career De Heem was especially admired for the realistic way he painted gold and silver. His paintings vary from small cabinet pieces to large banquet paintings containing luxurious decorative art objects. He is known to have collaborated with other painters, including Lievens, Jan, whom he knew in Leiden and Antwerp. Among his many students and followers were Mignon, Abraham, Cerstiaen Luyckx (1623–after 1674), and Joris van Son (1623–1667).

Explore Selected Works

A profusion of flowers in shades of white, orange, blue, and deep pink, with earthy-green leaves, burst from the narrow opening of a glass vase in this vertical still life painting. Shown against a dark brown background, the vase sits on a caramel-brown ledge. The flowers in the center of the arrangement draw the eye. On our right two tulips are streaked with cream white and dark pink. A flower above it, perhaps an anemone, has white ruffled petals with flame-red tips around a denim-blue center. A small snail in a rust-orange shell rests on a curling green leaf nearby. On our left is a partly opened tulip with scarlet-red streaks next to an ivory-white hydrangea with clusters of tiny petals. Trumpet-shaped, sea-blue morning glories and an amber-orange bloom surround the white hydrangea. The top third of the arrangement has a tall, white peony with feathery petals at the center. Queen Anne’s lace nestles alongside small blooms in muted purples and blues, sage-green peapods, and a carrot-orange flower that resembles a daisy. A slender stalk of wheat extends off the right side while another bends to meet the ledge. The lower third of the arrangement is filled with pink roses, more green pea pods, two closed, plum-purple flowers, and another feathery peony, this one crimson red, which droops to meet the ledge near the bottom right corner of the painting. A few blackberries lie on the ledge nearby. Leaves in various sizes and shades of green fill in among the blooms. More insects and creatures are scattered throughout the composition. For example, a caterpillar clings to the underside of the white peony at the top while a brown and black butterfly flies toward it. A bee sits on the white and red anemone, and a snail, salamander, and spider gather on the ledge to the left of the vase. Stems and the water line are visible within the glass vase, which swells from a narrow opening into a wide base. Panes of a window off to our left reflects in the belly of the vase. The artist signed the front face of the ledge near the lower left: “J.D. De Heem f.”
Jan Davidsz de Heem, Vase of Flowers, c. 1660, oil on canvas, Andrew W. Mellon Fund, 1961.6.1

Vase of Flowers

Jan Davidsz de Heem · c. 1660 · oil on canvas ·  Accession ID  1961.6.1

Bibliography

1753

  • Houbraken, Arnold. De Groote Schouburgh der Nederlantsche Konstschilders en Schilderessen. 3 vols. in 1. The Hague, 1753 (Reprint: Amsterdam, 1976): 1:209-212.

1956

  • Bergström, Ingvar. Dutch Still-Life Painting in the Seventeenth Century. Translated by Christina Hedström and Gerald Taylor. London, 1956: 191-228.

1970

  • De Mirimonde, A. P. "Musique et symbolisme chez Jan Davidszoon de Heem, Cornleis Janszoon en Jan II Janszoon de Heem." Jaarboek van het Koninklijk Museum voor Schone Kunsten Antwerpen (1970): 241-296.

1988

  • Bergström, Ingvar. "Another Look at De Heem's Early Dutch Period - 1626-1635." Mercury 7 (1988): 37-50.

  • Meijer, Fred G. "Jan Davidsz. de Heem's Earliest Paintings, 1626-1628." Mercury 7 (1988): 29-36.

  • Segal, Sam. A Prosperous Past: The Sumptuous Still Life in the Netherlands, 1600–1700. Edited by William B. Jordan. Translated by P.M. van Tongeren. Exh. cat. Stedelijk Museum Het Prinsenhof, Delft; Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth. The Hague, 1988: 141-164.

1990

  • Bok, Martin Jan. "Jan Davidsz. de Heem's Birthplace and Family." Mercury 11 (1990): 48-52.

1991

  • Segal, Sam, and Liesbeth M. Helmus. "De Biographie van Jan Davidsz, Cornelis Jansz, Jan Jansz en David Cornelisz de Heem." In Jan Davidsz. de Heem en zijn Kring. Edited by Sam Segal. Exh. cat. Centraal Museum, Utrecht; Herzog Anton Ulrich-Museum, Braunschweig. The Hague, 1991: 55-68.

1995

  • Wheelock, Arthur K., Jr. Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century. The Collections of the National Gallery of Art Systematic Catalogue. Washington, D.C., 1995: 102-103.

2003

  • Willigen, Adriaan van der, and Fred G. Meijer. A dictionary of Dutch and Flemish still-life painters working in oils, 1525-1725. Leiden, 2003: 105-106.