Still Life with a Silver Jug

A silver ewer catches the light on a table of precious objects — a Chinese porcelain bowl, a rummer of wine, half a lemon with its rind curling over the table’s edge. Painted around 1655–60, this is a signature work of the Amsterdam still-life master Willem Kalf, the painter who more than any other turned the display of costly objects into high art. The interplay of polished silver, translucent glass and glowing fruit against the dark background, and the rich, free handling of paint, make it one of the most brilliant of his celebrated pronkstilleven, or luxury still lifes.