Jan Davidsz de Heem,
1606 – 1683
Dutch – Baroque period

He was born on April 17, 1606 in the Dutch city of Urecht in the Netherlands. During the Golden Age of Dutch painting, there were countless artists who made an important name for themselves.  Their popularity was created because of their advanced skills and knowledge as an artist, but especially because their work was painted with such great detail and extraordinary beauty. The famous Dutch Master of the ‘Golden Age’, Jan Davidsz de Heem was one of these grand still life artists. Jan Davidsz de Heem was one of the greatest of all the European still-life painters.

As a young man, Jan Davidsz moved to Leiden in 1626 where he met his first wife Aeltjn van Weede.  Together they had four children, one of whom went on to become a great artist himself. They lived there between 1626 and 1635 -1636, and then they moved to the city of Antwerp where he joined the painters Guild of St. Luke. Aeltin, his wife, died in 1642 and Jan Davidsz de Heem remarried one year later to Anna Ruckers a native from Antwerp, who went on to have six children with de Heem. Later he returned to his hometown of Urecht until 1672 the same year that the military forces of Louis XIV’s invaded the Netherlands.  He then returned to Antwerp where he lived until his death at the age of seventy seven in 1683 or 1684.

Jan Davidsz de Heem was considered a master of floral, fruit still life, garlands and cartouche compositions. His paintings often depicted very elaborate collections of fine objects used by the upper classes and he was also known to inject symbolism and allegory into many of his paintings.  There is a sense of earthly abundance featured in his art. His depictions of flowers often showed the life cycle of the flower from bud to fully open. One of the skills that this artist is most known for is the fact that he was able to include several small animals and many insects in combination with realistic water drops to help him complete the composition. He did so in such a manner that they became part of the overall composition without overdoing the detail or adding confusion.

He was also known for his almost perfect and realistic renderings of metals such as silver and gold. His works were often divided into three distinct genres of still life paintings, the ‘flower pieces’ the ‘breakfast pieces’ and the ‘vanitas’ (these were paintings that depicted the vanities of life) these were very popular amongst the seventeenth century Dutch art collectors. His range was quite broad and in most of his paintings he injected allegorical meaning to share a moral or some specific virtue.

The variety of subjects that this artist included in his work was quite expansive, in the still life compositions one might find not only flowers and fruit, but musical instruments, objects which represented the ‘vanitas’ or the fleeting and frivolous collections of man.  Each painting was filled with the abundance of life’s treasures as well as their pleasures.  Jan had many followers who were imitators of his great works. There were the apprentices or pupils who copied his works as studies, but none as closely as his son Cornelis de Heem who was also a famous Dutch painter in his time.

Jan’s father David de Heem the Elder born in 1570 and passed in 1632, was also a famous Dutch Master Painter.  Jan received training under his father's hand in his earlier years as an artist; and then he may have continued his studies from the Master Balthasar van der Ast.  The similarities between de Heem’s earliest works and his that of van der Ast is quite understandable as any student may have emulated his master.

One of his paintings ‘A Table of Desserts’ now at the Musee du Louvre, Paris was owned by Louis  XIV.  There are over one hundred of his paintings on display in European galleries but only eighteen are actually dated.  It’s said that he only signed his most beloved works.

Many of his paintings are featured in a book titled ‘Dutch Flower Painting’ by Paul Taylor, look for this book in our Library section of the website.

References

Bouquets from the Golden Age - Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam
Dutch Flower Painting, Paul Taylor - ISBN:  0-300-05390-8
A Flowery Past - Sam Segal
Flowers and Nature - Sam Segal - ISBN:  9012066328