Artwork
Still Life with a Lobster
Still Life with a Lobster is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Jan Davidsz. de Heem. It dates from 1669 and is held in the collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden. Jan Davidsz.
About this work
Subject & Meaning
de Heem's Still Life with a Lobster (1669) presents a sumptuous banquet of marine and domestic symbols that convey wealth, transience, and moral warning.
Jan Davidsz. de Heem's Still Life with a Lobster (1669) presents a sumptuous banquet of marine and domestic symbols that convey wealth, transience, and moral warning. The lobster, a prized luxury item, signals affluence while also hinting at decay; accompanying lemon, grapes, and fringe echo themes of fleeting pleasure and the inevitable passage of time. The painting's arrangement of exotic foods within a modest interior reflects the owner's cosmopolitan taste and the broader 17th‑century fascination with material abundance amid Protestant admonitions against excess.
Technique & Style
The work is an oil painting created on canvas, exemplifying Dutch Golden Age pronk still life. It depicts a lobster alongside lemon, fringe, grape, orange, and a box, rendered with meticulous attention to texture and light. The composition showcases a restrained yet rich palette, with careful handling of tonal contrasts and spatial depth. The painting measures 67 cm in height and 56 cm in width.
History & Provenance
Jan Davidsz. de Heem painted Still Life with a Lobster in 1669. The work is an oil on canvas measuring 67 by 56 cm.
The painting is held in the collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden and is located at the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister.
Still Life with a Lobster has been part of the collection of the Staatliche Kunstsammlungen Dresden since at least the mid-nineteenth century. It is housed in the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, where it is displayed as a prime example of seventeenth-century Dutch pronk still life. The painting carries the inventory designation that places it within the museum’s permanent holdings.
No major international loan exhibitions of the work have been documented in recent decades, reflecting its status as a core work in Dresden’s collection.
Overview
Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s Still Life with a Lobster (1669) is an oil on canvas executed during the Dutch Golden Age. The composition gathers a lobster, fruit, a jug and a glass on a wooden platform, rendered with meticulous detail. The work belongs to the Gemäldegalerie Alte Meister, where it is displayed among other 17th‑century Dutch paintings.
Artist & collection
Artist
Maria van Oosterwijck (1630–1693), also spelled Oosterwyck, was a Dutch Golden Age painter, specialising in richly detailed flower paintings and other still lifes.
