Life and work

Willem Kalf was born in Rotterdam

Rotterdam

Rotterdam is the second-largest city in the Netherlands and one of the largest ports in the world. Starting as a dam on the Rotte river, Rotterdam has grown into a major international commercial centre...

, in 1619. He was previously thought to have been born in 1622, but H. E. van Gelder’s important archival research has established the painter’s correct place and date of birth. Kalf was born into a prosperous patrician family in Rotterdam, where his father, a cloth merchant, held municipal posts as well. In the late 1630s, Willem Kalf travelled to Paris

Paris

Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...

 and spent time in the circle of the Flemish

Flemish people

The Flemings or Flemish are the Dutch-speaking inhabitants of Belgium, where they are mostly found in the northern region of Flanders. They are one of two principal cultural-linguistic groups in Belgium, the other being the French-speaking Walloons...

 artists in Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Saint-Germain-des-Prés

Saint-Germain-des-Prés is an area of the 6th arrondissement of Paris, France, located around the church of the former Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés....

, Paris. In Paris he painted mainly small-scale rustic interiors and still lifes. Kalf’s rustic interiors are typically dominated by groups of vegetables, buckets, pots and pans, which he arranged as a still life in the foreground (e.g. Kitchen Still life, Dresden, Gemäldegal; Alte Meister). Figures usually appeared only in the blurred obscurity of the background. Though painted in Paris, those pictures belong to a pictorial tradition practised primarily in Flanders

Flanders

Flanders is the community of the Flemings but also one of the institutions in Belgium, and a geographical region located in parts of present-day Belgium, France and the Netherlands. "Flanders" can also refer to the northern part of Belgium that contains Brussels, Bruges, Ghent and Antwerp...

 in the early 17th century, by such artists as David Teniers the Younger

David Teniers the Younger

David Teniers the Younger was a Flemish artist born in Antwerp, the son of David Teniers the Elder. His son David Teniers III and his grandson David Teniers IV were also painters...

. The only indication of the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

 origin of the paintings are a few objects that Flemish exponents of the same genre would not have pictured in their works. Kalf’s rustic interiors had a large influence on French art

French art

French art consists of the visual and plastic arts originating from the geographical area of France...

 in the circle of the Le Nain

Le Nain

The three Le Nain brothers were painters in 17th-century France: Antoine Le Nain , Louis Le Nain , and Mathieu Le Nain...

 brothers. The semi-monochrome still lifes which Kalf created in Paris form a link to the banketjes or 'little banquet pieces' painted by such Dutch art

Dutch art

Dutch art describes the history of visual arts in the Netherlands, after the United Provinces separated from Flanders. Earlier painting in the area is covered in Early Netherlandish painting and Renaissance art.-Golden Age:...

ists as Pieter Claesz

Pieter Claesz

Pieter Claesz was a Dutch Golden Age still life painter.-Biography:He was born in Berchem, Belgium, near Antwerp, where he became a member of the Guild of St. Luke in 1620. He moved to Haarlem in 1621, where his son, the landscape painter Nicolaes Pieterszoon Berchem was born...

, Willem Claeszoon Heda

Willem Claeszoon Heda

Willem Claeszoon Heda was one of the earliest Dutch Golden Age artists devoted exclusively to the painting of still lifes.-Biography:Heda was born in Haarlem,...

 and others in the 1630s. During the 1640s, Kalf further developed the banketje into a novel form of sumptuous and ornate still life (known as pronkstilleven), depicting rich groupings of gold and silver vessels. Like other still lifes of this period, these paintings were usually expressing vanitas

Vanitas

In the arts, vanitas is a type of symbolic work of art especially associated with Northern European still life painting in Flanders and the Netherlands in the 16th and 17th centuries, though also common in other places and periods. The word is Latin, meaning "emptiness" and loosely translated...

allegories.

Still lifes

Kalf's magnificent still lifes vary little in their structure, and most of them actually feature the same objects. Usually, a damask

Damask

Damask is a reversible figured fabric of silk, wool, linen, cotton, or synthetic fibers, with a pattern formed by weaving. Damasks are woven with one warp yarn and one weft yarn, usually with the pattern in warp-faced satin weave and the ground in weft-faced or sateen weave...

 cloth or tapestry

Tapestry

Tapestry is a form of textile art, traditionally woven on a vertical loom, however it can also be woven on a floor loom as well. It is composed of two sets of interlaced threads, those running parallel to the length and those parallel to the width ; the warp threads are set up under tension on a...

 is draped upon a table on which there is tableware, with gold and silver vessels, many of which have been identified as work of specific goldsmith

Goldsmith

A goldsmith is a metalworker who specializes in working with gold and other precious metals. Since ancient times the techniques of a goldsmith have evolved very little in order to produce items of jewelry of quality standards. In modern times actual goldsmiths are rare...

s, such as Johannes Lutma

Johannes Lutma

Johannes Lutma the elder was a well-known Dutch Silversmith. After spending time in Paris , he came to Amsterdam in 1621 where he married in 1623. He was a friend of Rembrandt, who later etched a portrait of him. The portrait shown here was painted by Jacob Adriaensz Backer...

. There is almost always a Chinese porcelain bowl, often tilted so that the fruits tumble out of it.

External links

• Painted Light Suermondt-Ludwig-Museum, Aachen, Germany
• Willem Kalf page at the Rijksmuseum
  Rijksmuseum
  The Rijksmuseum Amsterdam or simply Rijksmuseum is a Dutch national museum in Amsterdam, located on the Museumplein. The museum is dedicated to arts, crafts, and history. It has a large collection of paintings from the Dutch Golden Age and a substantial collection of Asian art...
  
  's website.
• Online gallery and literature at PubHist