Still Life with Nautilus Cup, circa 1645, probably by Gerrit Willemsz.
Heda (1624- 1649
© The National Gallery, London (NG6336
The Goldsmith Jacob Claesz
A silver-gilt figure, Jacob Claesz.
de Grebber,
Amsterdam, 1627, with later basket, Private Collection
c orporation, involved in the trade of fish represented by the
e xample on its own in the dish and the fish waved triumphantly
b y the figure surmounting the Nautilus.
de Grebber came from an
ancient family of goldsmiths and painters.
He was born in Delft
in 1586 where his father Nicolaes Adriansz was a goldsmith.
His elder brother Adriaen Claesz, also a goldsmith, whose
portrait of the father is in the Rijksprentenkabinet (RP-1951-
548) remained in Delft while the younger brother Jacob went
to Amsterdam.
They must have remained in touch and shared
models and ideas, as a Nautilus also of 1628 by the Delft
brother includes a similar winged sea horse driven by a trident-
wielding Neptune (Biesboer p.
193 and 194 see literature).
Some of the most imaginative nautilus cups derive from the
de Grebber workshop including one by the father Nicolaes
which also featured in a painting in the 16th century.
The pipe
blowing figures making up the straps on the present cup are
reminiscent of the straps on that nautilus cup by Nicolaes de
Grebber Delft, 1592 (Prinsenhof museum, Delft).
This had
belonged to Horace Walpole and before that Sir John Paston,
and like the present cup, was painted in the 17th century,
appearing in the well know depiction of Sir John’s treasures
now in the Norwich Castle Museum and Art Gallery, Norfolk.
There were also de Grebber silversmiths and painters working
in Haarlem
The de Grebber Nautilus cup now offered, features
prominently in a still-life painting attributed to Gerrit Willemsz.
It has been suggested
b y Hans Ulrich Mette (see literature) that this figure on the top
o f the Nautilus is Nessus, the half man half horse who carried
D eianeira across the river, but with his scaly feet he may be
c loser to the fabulous marine creatures of Adriaen Collaert
e ngraved around 1600 (see detail).
As with the print, the cup
g ives a sense of the abundance, excitement, and strangeness
o f the sea which the Nautilus shell represented, and which was
s o fascinating to people at the time.
N owhere was the fascination with shells in the 17th century
m ore prevalent than in the United Provinces.
The art dealer
E dmé-François Gersaint who sold shells as well as paintings
fr om his shop in Paris, famously painted by his friend Jean-
A ntoine Watteau, recorded after a visit to the Netherlands,
‘e veryone there is curious’ (Leonhard p.
183.
see detail).
The
e arly Dutch scientist Gerhardus Everardus Rumphius, working
f or the Dutch East India Company, (VOC) on Amboyna in the
E ast Indies, records details of the Nautilus shells found there
in his D’AmboinischRaritkammer, (the Ambonese curiosity
c abinet) published in Amsterdam in 1705 ‘the shell is used
m ost often to fashion beautiful drinking bowls such as those
k nown in Europe; to do this one should use the biggest and
s moothest ones and look very carefully that they do not have
li ttle holes that one can see through anon and which were
m ade by certain warts…, a slimy worm that has a sharp little
t ooth which can drill through the hard shell….,
One should
p lace a complete one (Nautilus shell) in something sour for
1 0 or 12 days, such as spoiled rice, vinegar or water that has
g rape leaves rotting in it and then the outer shell will come
a way, which one should rub away by means of hard scouring…
u ntil the mother of pearl has come through everywhere, which
o ne then rubs with a weak aqua-fortis, until it has acquired its
p erfect luster, and finally rinse it with soapy water’.
(Beekman
p
90). In 1682 Rumphius sold his collection of ‘Curiosities’
m ostly the shells he had collected to Cosimo III de Medici
G rand Duke of Tuscany
Heda, from Haarlem circa 1640 (The National Gallery, London,
see detail).
Also in the painting, the other standing piece of
silver, is a wine glass holder modelled as a grape picker, with
dice in his hand representing the uncertainties of life; this was
made by the same goldsmith as the Nautilus cup.
Male and
female examples with Jacob de Grebber’s mark, Amsterdam
1627 are in a private collection (see detail of the male figure
with later grape basket) and another male figure is illustrated
in Biesboer p.
54 (see literature).
The coincidence of having
the main silver pieces by the same goldsmith might suggest
that the painting was a commission by the owner of the silver,
perhaps an individual or as the large size of the painting
and the three identical wine glasses suggest, a group or
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