Pronkstillleven with Fruit and Fowl

The still life in Düsseldorf is one of the most opulent and earliest examples of a series of splendid still lifes (Pronkstillleven) the painter produced, whereby, influenced by Jan Davidsz. de Heem, precious tableware is combined with fruit and dead animals. The painter seems to win in the competition of craftsmanship and painting, as he manages to present the wealth of nature and art in his painting more artfully than nature itself. The luxurious items include the brass mortar, the velvet cloth, or the Delft faience bowl, modelled after a Chinese porcelain bowl of the Wang-Li period (1573 onwards), as does the pomegranate, the lemons and the grapes. Doubly coded (sensual enjoyment and threatening transience), the grapes and the wine may bring to mind Christ’s blood and the pomegranate broken open the Resurrection. The drinking goblet and the reticella Glass vessel à la façon de Venise can be read as vanitas symbols given their fragility, and the oysters and plucked fowl as a warning against a lust for the flesh. (Bettina Baumgärtel)