Still Life with Oysters and Grapes
Still Life with Oysters and Grapes c1653 by Dutch Painter Jan Davidsz de Heem (1606 – 1684); a still life artist that was representative of Dutch and Flemish Baroque painting styles.
This is a beautiful still life painting, rich in color that contains a large and thick wooden table that is three quarters covered with a blue satin cloth on its right side; and in the background we can see a partial painting on the right side of the wall of a pomegranate.
On the table moving right to left we see a bundle of large red grapes connected with there stem and large vibrant green leaves with a red plant beneath the leaves; while on the leaves we see an orange caterpillar, and climbing the stem of the plant is a large wasps.
Next to red grapes are green or white grapes on which we can see a small ant walking on; with a cut open and peeled orange to the left of them and an acorn in front of the orange which is partially under a silver platter.
Behind the grapes is a fancy chalice filled with white wine, and to the left of that is another orange with it’s plant stem still connected to it, with another caterpillar crawling on the stem, that is resting in a silver dish that is on top of a sculpted metal pedestal.
Beside of the pedestal is a metal flask that has a concave cove with perforation in it and a small knob at the very top, and it is support part of the stem from the orange.
In front of the flask are what appear to be to large lemons; one partially peeled and the other in as a quarter slice that are leaning against the silver platter that has an oyster on the shell on it, another oyster on the shell partially on its edge and on the table, and another oyster on the shell beneath the platter.
On the farthest side of the table on the left we can see turned over oyster shells and seeds of some sort sprinkled all around, as well as a black and gold striped insect on the table edge.
Still Life with Oysters and Grapes is a remastered digital art old masters reproduction of a public domain image that is available as a canvas print online.
Below Derived From Wikipedia.org
Jan was born to David de Heem the Elder (1570 – 1631), and first studied with his father before studying under Dutch Golden Age Still Life Painter Balthasar van der Ast (1593-94 – 1657); then in 1629 at the age of 23 studied under Dutch Golden Age Painter David Bailly (1584 – 1657).
When he was 29 he moved to the Southern Netherlands and joined the Guild of Saint Luke burgher (upper middle class individual) of that city in 1637.
Often considered to be one of the greatest painters of his time, he was always in great demand and was well paid for the artwork which he produced during the Dutch Golden Age.