Relatively little is known about the early life of Pieter Claesz.  He was born in 1596 or 1597 in Berchem, a village near Antwerp, and probably received his training in Antwerp from a local master.  When he was in his early twenties, he moved to Haarlem and remained there for the rest of his life.  Claesz devoted himself exclusively to still lifes, mainly breakfast and banquet pieces, but also some still lifes with smokers’ requisites and vanitas motifs.  Fortunately for art historians, he consistently monogrammed his works, either PC (P through C) or sometimes vertically extended to PCH (the H standing for Harlemensis), and dated many of them, thereby providing a clear record of his stylistic development from 1621 to 1660. 

Claesz’s early still lifes are closely related to the still lifes of laid tables painted by the first generation of Haarlem still-life painters, such as Floris van Dijck (c. 1575-1651), Nicolaes Gillis (c. 1612-1632) and Floris van Schooten (c. 1585/88-1656).  In these youthful works, he assumed a relatively high vantage point, arranging his objects in rows or in a chequerboard pattern, with little overlapping of forms.  Although this enabled him to give a fuller account of each item, it compromised the perspective.  At the same time, he tried out various lighting effects, at times using clear daylight, at others deep chiaroscuro or artificial illumination.  During this period his brushwork varied and there was a strong emphasis on local colour.  Soon, however, he began to evolve a style of his own.  Towards 1630, together with fellow townsman Willem Claesz Heda (1594-1680), Pieter Claesz developed a new type of still-life painting – the so-called monochrome bancketje (monochrome banquet piece) – characterised by a striking simplicity and renunciation of colour variations.  In these austere and refined works of his early maturity, Claesz showed himself to be an outstanding master at capturing the effects of light and atmosphere and describing the textures of diverse objects.  Later in the 1630s, he began to tackle larger, more elaborate compositions, which nonetheless remained faithful to the tonal style.  After about 1640, his pictures became somewhat less monochromatic again and he developed a more painterly manner.

The period around 1630 was a highly productive one for Claesz, but it was followed by a few years in 1633 and 1634 when his output seems to have almost ground to a halt.  The reason for this hiatus is not known, but it has been suggested that it may have been occasioned by the illness and death of his first wife and the demands of caring for his children.  Whatever the cause, in 1635, the year in which the widowed artist married for a second time, he apparently took up his brushes again with renewed energy and strength.  This unusually large and boldly conceived still life of 1635 is testament to the artist’s new-found ambition and vigour.  A beam of light entering from the upper left illuminates a group of objects on a table covered with a snow-white linen tablecloth lying atop a dark moss-green cloth.  The composition is dominated by a large, bulbous pewter jug, standing on the right, with its lid wide open: close beside it stands a tall, elegant flute glass. Appearing to the left are a gilt tazza resting on top of an overturned glass rummer, a tumbler of beer and three pewter plates bearing oysters, a bread roll, a cone of paper containing grains of pepper, and a partly peeled and sliced lemon.  A crumpled linen napkin, a knife and a handful of cracked nuts complete the arrangement. 

While the wine and beer, bread, lemon, oysters and nuts suggest the remains of a simple meal, the costly tazza, the finely wrought knife and sophisticated drinking vessels denote a wealthy household.  Claesz’s rendering of the various materials on display is masterful, as is his treatment of the reflections in the metal and glass objects.  The pewter plate perched precariously on the edge of the table, with the dangling curl of lemon peel, together with the cascading folds of white linen create a strongly three-dimensional effect.  By confining himself to closely attuned shades of grey, brown, ochre and green, with only a few accents of colour in the golden tazza and the citrus peel, Claesz created a particularly harmonious effect.  

The move by Claesz towards a greater monumentality was likely stimulated by contact with the work of the Amsterdam still-life specialist Jan Jansz den Uyl (1595/96-1639/40).  A similar influence is also apparent two years earlier in a large banquet piece by Claesz’s Haarlem colleague Willem Heda, now in the Frans Hals Museum, Haarlem[i].  We do not know whether Claesz and/or Heda knew Den Uyl personally, but they must have been familiar with examples of his still lifes from around 1632/33.  During this period Den Uyl executed a small group of imposing still lifes in which a large pewter jug, a flute glass and an overturned tazza play a key role in structuring the composition.

There can be no doubt, however, that Claesz and Heda were in close contact with each other during these years.  Very little documentary evidence exists to shed light on the relationship between them, but the visual parallels in their paintings – particularly in their choice of motifs, compositions and colour palette – suggest that they were quite familiar with each other’s work.  In the early 1630s, Heda, the slightly older of the two painters, began to incorporate into his own work themes found in Claesz’s paintings.  Furthermore, it appears that the two painters not only worked in closely related styles, but may also have shared props. Between 1630 and 1633, Heda included a silver tazza with chased decoration in several of his still lifes, and then in 1635 and 1636 the identical vessel appears in still lifes by Claesz. We can only speculate that Heda either lent or sold the object to his colleague.  If we compare the present painting with a still life by Heda (Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam)[ii], painted in 1635 and depicting more or less the same subject, the visual exchange between the two artists becomes unquestionably clear. 

BIOGRAPHY

Documentary information about the early life of Pieter Claesz is somewhat sparse.  A birth date of 1596 or 1597 can be deduced from two notarial documents dated 29 September and 2 October 1640 in which he is referred to as being “about 43 years old”[iii].  Pieter came from Berchem, (probably the village of Berchem near Antwerp) and may have been Catholic.  He probably received his first artistic education in the circle of Osias Beert (c. 1580-1623) and Clara Peeters (c. 1607-1621 or later), whose style is reflected in his early work.  He was briefly a member of the Antwerp Guild of St. Luke, before leaving for the Northern Netherlands: the Guild’s records mention a certain Pieter Clasen who was admitted as a master in 1620.  Pieter settled in Haarlem around 1620/21, where his son Nicolaes (who later became the successful Italianate landscapist Nicolaes Berchem) was born in 1622.  The date of Pieter’s first marriage and the name of his first wife are not known, nor are the baptismal dates of their three children, Nicolaes, Maria and Magdalena.  The date Claesz. registered in the Haarlem Guild of St. Luke is undocumented, but he was listed on the membership roll of 1634. He was, however, mentioned as a painter, together with Willem Claesz. Heda, in Samuel Ampzing’s Beschryvinge ende lof der stad Haerlem, of 1628.  After the death of his first wife, Pieter Claesz. got married for the second time in August 1635 to Trijntien Lourensdr., a young woman from Flanders.  Twins, Lucia and Catharina, were born in 1648, who were still minors when their father died in December 1660 and were, therefore, admitted to the orphanage in Haarlem.  Pieter Claesz. was buried in the Nieuwe Kerk on 1 January 1661. 

The oeuvre of Pieter Claesz. comprises around two hundred and fifty works, produced during a career encompassing some forty years from around 1621 to 1660.  With a few exceptions, his paintings are all signed with his monogram and for the most part dated.