Willem kalf biography definition ap

Willem Kalf — 31 July was one of the most prominent Dutch still-life painters of the 17th century, the Dutch Golden Age. We first get acquainted with Willem Kalf through Arnold Houbraken , in his Groot Schilderboek, who speaks very highly of him. This was due to his extensive art knowledge and what we gain from Houbraken, his affable personality.

His claim to fame now rests mostly on his mature still lifes, pronkstilleven in Dutch, which feature the most exotic and luxurious objects.

Willem Kalf () famous for his luxurious still lifes featuring life paintings, including works by Willem Claesz.

There is little known about Willem Kalf's life, for there is minimal documentation on Kalf himself. What is known is mainly derived from archival research, documents, and other sources which link him to specific times, places, and people, but there are no direct writings on him, except Houbraken and a small piece by Gerard de Lairesse.

He was the son of Machtelt Gerrits and Jan Jansz. Kalf, a wealthy cloth merchant and member of the Rotterdam council who, just before he died in , got caught in a scandal. He remained in Rotterdam with his mother and started showing interest in painting when he was roughly 18 years old.

This painting is called “Still Life with Silver Ewer.” The silver ewer is pretty fabulous and ostentatious and luxurious.

This is where Kalf's earliest period begins, usually called his French or Parisian period. Kalf's farm interiors were very popular among his fellow artists and he was therefore often copied, not just in the 17th century. Kalf's interiors were highly priced in France well into the 18th century. The fact that Willem Kalf acquired great fame in Paris was not only due to the enormous amount of genre scenes he painted.

While he was working in Paris, Kalf developed a new genre of painting that would soon gain popularity not only within France; his still-life paintings. In October Kalf had returned to Rotterdam, but he did not stay there, because 5 years later his name appears in the marriage book for the city of Hoorn.