Object data
oil on panel
support: height 76.5 cm × width 135 cm
Pieter Claesz
Still Life with Turkey Pie
1627
Inscriptions
- signature and date, in ligated monogram, bottom centre, on the knife: Aº 1627 PC
Technical notes
The support consists of three horizontally grained oak panels and is bevelled on all sides. Dendrochronology has shown that the youngest heartwood ring was formed in 1609. The panel could have been ready for use by 1620, but a date in or after 1635 is more likely. The thin and smoothly applied ground is white in colour. The objects were reserved in the background, and the composition was painted from the back to the front. The paint was smoothly applied, with impasto for the highlights and to indicate the textures of the objects.
Scientific examination and reports
- dendrochronology: P. Klein, RMA, 30 October 1998
- technical report: I. Verslype, RMA, 11 July 2005
Condition
Good.
Conservation
- L. Kuiper, 1974: revarnished
Provenance
…; collection, Cecilia Maria Barones Van Pallandt, née jonkvrouw Steengracht (1813-99), kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse, before 1881;1 her daughter, Cornelia Johanna Gravin van Lynden, née Barones van Pallandt (1840-1923), kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse;2 her son Johan Maurits Dideric Graaf van Lynden (1864-1930), kasteel Keukenhof, Lisse;3 his son Johan Carel Elias Graaf van Lynden (1912-2003), St. Michielsgestel; from whom, fl. 300,000, to the dealer S. Nijstad, The Hague, 1974;4 from whom, fl. 832,000, to the museum, with support from the Vereniging Rembrandt, the Prins Bernhard Cultuurfonds and the Fotocommissie, 1974
Object number: SK-A-4646
Credit line: Purchased with the support of the Vereniging Rembrandt and the Stichting tot Bevordering van de Belangen van het Rijksmuseum
Copyright: Public domain
The artist
Pieter Claesz (Berchem 1596/97 - Haarlem 1660)
Pieter Claesz was born in 1596/97 in Berchem, near Antwerp, and not in Steinfurt as was previously thought. He may briefly have been a member of the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, for one Pieter Clasen was admitted as a master in its register of 1620.
He settled in Haarlem in 1620/21, where his son Claes Pietersz Berchem (later a famous painter himself) was born in 1622, and where he lived until his death at the end of December 1660. The date of his first marriage must have been before 1622. His second marriage, to Trijntien Lourensdr, took place in August 1635. Documents relating to his life and work in Haarlem cover the period 1628-48, and also record his funeral on 1 January 1661.
Claesz’s name appears in the membership roll of the Haarlem Guild of St Luke in 1634, and on his son’s admission to the guild in 1642 he was referred to as a ‘Banket schilder’ (painter of banquet pieces). Pieter Claesz painted still lifes exclusively, more especially breakfast and banquet pieces, and vanitas scenes. Most of his paintings bear his monogram PC and are dated between 1621 and 1660. His earliest known paintings, most of them breakfast pieces, are in the manner of early Haarlem still-life painters like Floris van Dijck. His mature period shows a grouping of fewer objects in a simpler arrangement and with a monochrome tonality. His works from this period often closely resemble those of his Haarlem colleague Willem Claesz Heda. His later works are more complex, consisting of luxurious displays in bright colours.
He was mentioned as a painter, together with Heda, in Samuel Ampzing’s Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem of 1628. Claesz’s paintings are frequently listed in 17th-century Haarlem estate inventories, but in the 18th and 19th centuries his name was almost completely forgotten. No paintings with his name feature in 18th-century Dutch sale catalogues, and it was only in 1882 that the monogram PC was identified as his.
Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007
References
Ampzing 1628, p. 372; Moes in Thieme/Becker VII, 1912, p. 28; Bergstro¨m 1957, pp. 114-23; Meijer in Saur XIX, 1992, pp. 353-54; Van der Willigen/Meijer 2003, p. 62; Brunner-Bulst 2004a, pp. 134-35; Van Thiel-Stroman 2006, pp. 124-26
Entry
Floris van Dijck's Still Life with Cheeses of c. 1615 (SK-A-4821) in the Rijksmuseum shows the initial phase in the development of Dutch still-life painting, while the present painting by Pieter Claesz illustrates the second stage. Van Dijck’s static arrangement has now made way for a lavish display of foodstuffs and sumptuous tableware. There are few overlaps, and the objects have again been set out on a laid table (the corner of which can now be seen). The vantage point is lower, though, and the suggestion of light falling behind the table creates a convincing sense of depth. Claesz’s palette is considerably lighter than Van Dijck’s, but is still relatively colourful and variegated compared to the later, more tonal monochrome works by himself and Willem Heda. This broadly brushed work is one of the largest and most ambitious still lifes in Pieter Claesz’s oeuvre.
Lying on the table is a knotted, oriental chessboard carpet,5 on top of which is a plain white damask tablecloth. Grapes and apples are displayed in a large ‘carrack’ or Wan-li fruit bowl on the right, that was imported from China. The reflection on the belly of the flagon on the left shows the table and the faint apparition of the artist at his easel. It is not clear whether the tall flagon, its spout adorned with a fabulous animal, is made of pewter or silver. There is little difference between the tint of the metal and that of the pewter plates, but since the flagon has gilded edges it is more likely to be silver.6 A slightly more ornate variant of the flagon is found in three paintings by Pieter Claesz of 1641,7 in an almost identical form in several by Willem Heda,8 as well as in still lifes by later masters like Abraham van Beyeren.9 Unfortunately, no such flagon has survived, either in pewter or in silver.10
Another de luxe item is the nautilus cup. The shell is set in a gilt mount studded with flowers of blue enamel and crowned with a representation of Fortuna, and stands on a beautifully decorated foot. Cups of this kind were popular in Germany and the Low Countries in the 16th and 17th centuries, and are often depicted in so-called sumptuous still lifes. No comparable specimen of this cup has survived, nor does it feature in any other paintings by Claesz or Heda.11
The turkey pie is a truly glorious dish. On top of the pastry crust are the feathers and head, with a floral sprig in the beak – the remains of the turkey that went into the pie. There is a similar pie, but with peacock feathers, in Still Life with a Peacock Pie, a Ewer and a Roast Pheasant, which is also dated 1627 and is similar in size and ambitiousness to this one.12 In a slightly smaller and earlier version of c. 1626, the pie is topped with a partridge with white feathers.13
The praise that Samuel Ampzing showered on Franchoys Elaut (1589-1635) of Haarlem as a painter of banquet pieces led Vroom to err in 1980 when he attributed several paintings by Pieter Claesz to Elaut, including this one.14
Jan Piet Filedt Kok, 2007
See Bibliography and Rijksmuseum painting catalogues
See Key to abbreviations and Acknowledgements
This entry was published in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam, I: Artists Born between 1570 and 1600, coll. cat. Amsterdam 2007, no. 43.
Literature
Bergström 1957, pp. 117-20; Vroom 1980, I, p. 20, II, p. 18, no. 50 (as Pieter Claesz), p. 49, no. 227 (as Frans Elout); Gemar-Koeltzsch 1995, II, p. 230, no. 76/6; Brunner-Bulst 2004a, pp. 161, 162, 164, 179, 218-19, no. 26, with earlier literature; Brunner-Bulst 2004b, p. 36; Brunner-Bulst in Haarlem etc. 2004, p. 118, no. 13
Collection catalogues
1976, p. 168, no. A 4646; 2007, no. 43
Citation
J.P. Filedt Kok, 2007, 'Pieter Claesz., Still Life with Turkey Pie, 1627', in J. Bikker (ed.), Dutch Paintings of the Seventeenth Century in the Rijksmuseum, online coll. cat. Amsterdam: hdl.handle.net/10934/RM0001.COLLECT.8143
(accessed 22 November 2024 15:22:38).