Willem Claesz. Heda, 'Still Life: Pewter and Silver Vessels and a Crab', probably about 1633-7

Willem Claesz. Heda uses muted colours to show the ingredients of a meal, with a focus on quality, not quantity. Everything on the table is expensive: this is the meal of a rich man. The white table cloth is made of damask, a luxurious silk fabric. Lemons were brought in from the Mediterranean, the porcelain blue and white plate came from China, and the pepper, spilt on a pewter plate, arrived in the Dutch Republic on a merchant ship from the East Indies.

The silver, pewter and glass vessels were probably made in the Dutch Republic but were still very desirable objects. Rock salt was a luxury and appears like a treasure on a polished pewter pedestal. Even a crab was costly. In keeping with Heda’s restrained colour palette, the crab is grey-brown rather than the bright pink they turn when cooked. The silver tazza (a shallow ornamental dish on a stem) is on its side, partly to break up the many upright lines at the back of the composition but also to show the detailed decoration on its underside.

Heda’s command of perspective is evident in how he shows the knife on the pewter plate that’s almost dropping off the table close to us. He’s creating the illusion of a real table with real objects. The ivory handle of the knife also protrudes into our space as if it were real. The blade is inserted into the mouth of a paper cone from which the peppercorns have spilled – this was the normal way of packaging spices. This particular cone has been made from a page torn from an almanac, a calendar of significant dates.

In another of his still life paintings, Still Life with a Lobster, Heda shows this same cone screwed up and put aside. This may mean that the painting is intended as a kind of vanitas (a still life that shows how fragile and transient life and its treasures are) though this isn't certain in either picture. Heda also shows a large pewter pot with a spout shaped like a mythical beast – a pot that also appears in Still Life with a Nautilus Cup by Heda’s son Gerrit, together with the salt pedestal. Father and son worked together, Gerrit probably as assistant, which suggests that some of the items used were studio props.