Stilleven met boeken

Leather-bound volumes and rolled papers are stacked and scattered across a table, the rich textures of tooled spines and yellowed pages rendered with warm, intimate light. Jan Lievens — Rembrandt’s childhood friend and lifelong rival — was celebrated across Europe for his virtuoso still lifes and portraits, and this large, contemplative painting shows the intellectual world of the Dutch Golden Age distilled into the quiet presence of books.