The Hoard of Plenty

One of the most exquisite – and expensive – artists of his generation, Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s eminent clientele included the well-heeled merchants and noblemen of 17th-century Antwerp during the Flemish Baroque era. Keen to outclass one another in wealth and glamour, their appetite for ever more sumptuous depictions of their material possessions gave rise to the genre of pronkstilleven, or ‘show-off’ still lifes.

De Heem excelled at creating these vast canvases, depicting ever more lifelike representations of delectable foods alongside the finest objects from around the globe: blue-and-white porcelain from China, ethereal glassware from Venice and an extraordinary ewer made from the ruby-encrusted shell of a turbo sea snail from the Indian and Pacific Oceans. As well as flaunting their owner’s riches, these paintings served a moral purpose, featuring symbolic objects such as pocket watches and smouldering tapers to remind viewers of their mortality and warn them that such worldly belongings can’t be taken into the afterlife.

For the first time ever, the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge has brought together four supreme examples of the genre, on loan from the Louvre, Brussels City Museum and two private collections. Painted by De Heem between 1640 and 1643, they are displayed alongside smaller still lifes and an astonishing flower painting by the artist from the museum’s own collection. For the next few months, the four masterpieces can be seen in the same place at the same time: a privilege the painter himself never enjoyed, as each painting left his studio as soon as he finished it.

Still lifes these may be, but they bristle with visual drama. Ripe figs teeter at the edge of the table, their paper-thin skins tearing under the weight of their luscious interiors; cherries dangle on a branch, each one reflecting in miniature the distinct form of a casement window; and bunches of grapes sit proudly on pewter plates giving off their glaucous bloom. De Heem is brilliant at conveying texture, giving us slick oysters, waxy quinces, fuzzy peaches and juicy lemons with nubbly rinds. These rare delicacies signal the financial resources of the painting’s owner – even a fruit pie, cut open, is painted as though it were filled with a bounty of gold and jewel-toned morsels.

As befits its standing as the University of Cambridge’s principal museum, the Fitzwilliam has seized the golden opportunity of having this important series together to conduct research into De Heem’s techniques and materials. The team are using a macro X-ray fluorescence scanner to detect the chemical elements in the artist’s pigments and determine how he achieved such extraordinary detail and realism.

As well as revealing areas where the master changed his mind or where the canvas was later added to or restored, the investigation into his paints will help situate a work within the global trade and industry of its time. Research will continue until the treasures are returned to their owners in spring, and be published in due course.

Only one of the four paintings features a human figure, but it tells us so much about De Heem’s culture and era. In Still Life with Boy and Parrots, 1641, a young Black servant boy reaches round a marble column to fish for some grapes from the fruit platter. Dressed in fine silks with a feather in his cap and a dazzling earring, the boy’s garb demonstrates his owner’s prosperity. His mischievous gaze is directed not at the fruit but at a captive monkey. Perched on a globe and wearing an earring that echoes the boy’s, the creature stares back at him while clutching his own bunch of grapes.

It’s a profoundly disturbing image, an unequivocally racist depiction of an enslaved human cast as one commodity among many in a flagrant array of goods sourced from colonised lands. It’s a reminder that for all their delectation, these seductive paintings were the product of a bitter era of human exploitation.

‘Picturing Excess: Jan Davidsz. de Heem’ runs until April 2025 at the Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. For more information, visit fitzmuseum.cam.ac.uk

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