Artwork
Still Life with a Roemer and a Watch
Still Life with a Roemer and a Watch is an oil painting by the Dutch Golden Age artist Willem Claesz Heda. It dates from 1629 and is held in the collection of the Mauritshuis. Willem Claesz.
About this work
Overview
Heda, a Haarlem painter active in the early seventeenth century, completed the oil painting Still Life with a Roemer and a Watch in 1629.
Willem Claesz. Heda, a Haarlem painter active in the early seventeenth century, completed the oil painting Still Life with a Roemer and a Watch in 1629. Executed in the restrained palette typical of his work, the composition presents a modest tabletop arrangement that includes a glass goblet, a metal cup, a whole fish, lemon wedges, nuts, a rope coil, a pocket watch and a small metal box with a ribbon. The work belongs to the Mauritshuis collection.
Subject & Meaning
The tableau gathers everyday objects—food, drink, a timepiece, and a decorative box—arranged to suggest a moment of quiet consumption. By juxtaposing perishable items such as fish and lemon with the enduring metal of the watch, the painting reflects on the transience of life and the passage of time, a common moral undertone in Dutch still‑life traditions.
Technique & Style
Heda employs a muted tonal range and meticulous rendering of surfaces, emphasizing the way light catches glass, metal and fish scales. The subtle chiaroscuro creates a gentle contrast between illuminated objects and the darker background, while the precise brushwork captures textures—from the smooth sheen of the roemer to the roughness of the rope—demonstrating his mastery of the late‑breakfast still‑life genre.
History & Provenance
Created during the height of the Dutch Golden Age, the painting exemplifies Heda’s specialization in breakfast‑type still lifes, a subgenre that focused on partially consumed meals and accompanying objects. After remaining in private hands for several centuries, the work entered the collection of the Mauritshuis in The Hague, where it is displayed as part of the museum’s representation of seventeenth‑century Dutch painting.
Own this work as a print
Artist & collection
Artist
Willem Claesz Heda was born in Haarlem on December 14, 1594, the son of Claes Pietersz, the city architect, and spent his entire life and career in that city.
