Still life of oysters, a nautilus cup, a roemer, lemon and other objects

Dated 1662, this panel featuring oysters, a nautilus cup, roemer, lemon, and other objects is a late-career summation of Heda's most characteristic motifs, assembled with the authority of an artist returning to favourite subjects one more time. By 1662 Heda was approaching seventy and had been painting still lifes for roughly forty years; the nautilus cup, roemer, oysters, and lemon that populate this panel had each appeared dozens of times in his previous work, yet the specific combination and arrangement remains particular to this composition. The reappearance of oysters alongside the nautilus cup in a late work suggests that Heda saw no tension between the commonplace food and the luxury decorative object — both were products of the sea, both were perishable in different ways, and both participated in the vanitas meditation that had underlain his work from the beginning. The lemon, appearing here as it did in 1630 compositions from Heda's early maturity, traces a continuous thread through his career; its spiral peel became almost a personal signature, a motif as identifiable as the roemer itself.

On panel, this late work's nautilus shell is treated with the confident shorthand of an artist who has painted the subject many times: the spiral pattern is indicated with efficient curved marks rather than painstakingly described. The roemer's glass is slightly softer in highlight definition than mid-career examples, consistent with the atmospheric loosening visible in other late Heda works.