Still Life with a Silver Ewer

Willem Kalf’s Still Life with a Silver Ewer is a masterwork of the Dutch pronkstilleven, the ‘showpiece still life’ that celebrated wealth and abundance. A gleaming silver ewer and salver, a blue-and-white porcelain bowl of fruit, a half-peeled lemon, and a costly oriental carpet are arranged in a pool of warm light against shadow. Kalf’s ability to suggest the different textures of silver, porcelain, fruit, and fabric made him the most admired still-life painter of his generation.