Breakfast of Crab
1648; Oil on canvas; The Hermitage at St. Petersburg
Heda, Willem Claesz. (1593/94-1680/82). Dutch still-life painter, active in Haarlem. He and Pieter Claesz. are the most important representatives of ontbijt (breakfast piece) painting in the Netherlands. His overall grey-green or brownish tonalities are very similar to those of Claesz., but Heda's work was usually more highly finished and his taste was more aristocratic. He showed a preference for ham, mince-meat pie, and oysters, and after 1629 never included a herring in his pictures. His son Gerrit (d. 1702) was his most important pupil.