Tobacco Pipes and a Brazier

still-life

A jug and glass of wine, a snuffbox, pipes, spills, and coals smoldering in a small brazier - these attributes of the vices of smoking and drunkenness constitute a variant of the 'vanitas,' a still-life reminding the viewer of the transience of earthly life. Claesz. supplements the traditional subgenre with an element that increases the eloquence of the didactic message: the banality of the objects that accompany us on the short journey from birth to death.

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About the Artist

Pieter Claesz.

1597 – 1661

Dutch still-life painter, born in Germany and active in Haarlem where he settled in 1617. He and Willem Claeasz. Heda, who also worked in Haarlem, were the most important exponents of the "ontbijt" or breakfast piece. They painted with subdued, virtually monochromatic palettes, the subtle handling of light and texture being the prime means of expression. Claesz. generally chose objects of a more homely kind than Heda, although his later work became more colourful and decorative. The two men founded a distinguished tradition of still-life painting in Haarlem, but Claesz.'s son, Nicholas Berchem became famous as a landscape painter.

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