Still Life, Breakfast with Champagne Glass and Pipe

"Nicht hoe veel, maar hoe eel/Not how much, but how noble" – a favourite proverb of Jan’s – is appropriate for this "banketje" (breakfast, light meal), probably painted in Antwerp.
In time-consuming fine painting, the master has captured the texture of the objects apparently arranged at random. Highlights increase the illusion, making the over-ripe grapes stand out as though in relief. Typically for the period, the painting has a wealth of symbolic and emblematic significations. The smouldering fuse, the extinguished pipe and the overturned "roemer" are all part of the baroque idea of vanitas: remember, life is transitory! The many layers of meaning range as far as the Eucharist, with broken bread, grapes and wine in a Venetian champagne glass – symbols of the Christian idea of redemption.
The erotic aspect inherent in the aphrodisiac effect of the oysters with lemon illustrates the manifold symbolism of the objects.
Nevertheless, the exotic citrus fruit – a constant element in 17th century Dutch still-life painting – is more than a symbol of moderation (tempering the sweet wine). With its brilliantly rendered large-pored skin, peeled in artistic spirals from the pulp, the artists’ “favourite” fruit refers to the widespread practice in Holland after 1630 of exposing the inner structure of objects and reproducing it as if through a magnifying glass.
This trend towards “microscopic expansion” (S. Alpers) illustrates the role played by natural science in painting, in a country where the microscope was already in use in 1615.

OEHRING Erika: Heem Jan Davidsz. de, Still life, breakfast with champagne glass and pipe, in: DUCKE Astrid, HABERSATTER Thomas, OEHRING Erika: Masterworks. Residenzgalerie Salzburg. Salzburg 2015, p. 44