Getty Adds Two Dutch Still Lifes, Including a De Heem It Pursued for 20 Years
A pair of Dutch still lifes — one newly surfaced, the other freshly won at auction — has entered the collection of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, sharpening the Getty Center’s holdings in 17th-century painting with works that turn abundance into a kind of moral theater.
The first acquisition, Jan Davidsz. de Heem’s “Glass Vase with Flowers and Fruit” (ca. 1673–74), is already on view in the Getty Center’s West Pavilion. The museum said it had been seeking the painting for more than two decades. Long unrecorded, the work only reappeared publicly in 2022, when it emerged from a private collection in Germany.
De Heem, a Dutch still-life specialist celebrated for his persuasive surfaces, built a reputation on illusionism and close observation. In this canvas, the bouquet and fruit are rendered with a precision that feels almost scientific: flame tulips — described by the museum as “still a highly prized flower in the Netherlands” — mingle with plums, berries, roses, morning glory, milk thistle, and honeysuckle. The painting belongs to a small group of nine related compositions that the Getty characterized as demonstrations of the artist’s “skill of illusionism and accurate botanical and entomological observations.”
The longer you look, the more the scene begins to move. Tiny insects occupy the arrangement at a minuscule scale, a detail that would have carried pointed meaning for early modern viewers. The Getty noted that butterflies and caterpillars, linked to metamorphosis, could signal life’s transience and “the soul freed from greed and desire.” Ants, by contrast, were traditionally admired as industrious creatures, standing for diligence and frugality.
A second still life will join the museum at a later date: Pieter Claesz’s “Still Life with Assorted Fruit” (1597/98–1660). Claesz, a Dutch painter whose still-life language helped shape later artists including De Heem, is represented here by an arrangement of grapes, strawberries, gooseberries, cherries, and apples. The Getty identified the picture as an example of a Dutch “fruitagje,” a type of still life that gathers varied foods into a single image.
Such paintings were rarely just celebrations of the table. As the museum observed, still lifes that emphasized plentiful provisions often pointed to abundance and prosperity — reassuring ideas during periods marked by war and religious upheaval.
The Claesz work also arrives with a clear collecting history. It remained in a private English collection until the mid-20th century, then entered the Lester L. Weindling collection of Dutch and Flemish paintings in New York. The Getty acquired it at Sotheby’s last month for $1.64 million, exceeding its $800,000–$1,200,000 estimate.
Together, the two acquisitions underscore how Dutch still life can operate on two registers at once: seducing the eye with sheen, bloom, and ripeness, while quietly insisting on time, labor, and the moral weight of desire. For visitors in Los Angeles, the effect begins now — with De Heem’s meticulously staged vase — and will deepen when Claesz’s fruit-laden canvas takes its place nearby.
