PIETER CLAESZ. AND ROELOF KOETS the Elder (Berghem c. 1597-1660 Haarlem) (1592 Haarlem 1655) Still life with Roman, silver cup, tazza, Chinese bowl, lemon, bread roll and grapes. Around 1650. Oil on wood. Monogrammed and dated on the rim of the lemon dish: PC 16(50?) and on the vine leaf lower right: RKoets. 75 × 105 cm. Expertise: Dr Martina Brunner-Bulst, 19.4.2010. Provenance: In German family ownership for over 150 years. Literature: Martina Brunner-Bulst: Testimony to a friendship. The collaboration between Pieter Claesz. and Roelof Koets, fig. 7, p. 64, in: Chales Dumas / Rudi Ekkart / Carla van de Puttelaar (eds.): Connoisseurship. Essays in Honour of Fred G. Meijer, Leiden 2000, pp. 60-67. This still life with a Roman, silver cup, tazza, Chinese porcelain bowl, lemon, bread roll and grapes, from a long-standing private collection and offered for sale for the first time in over a century, is a characteristic example of the collaboration between the Haarlem painter Pieter Claesz and the fruit painter Roelof Koets, who enlivens the right-hand side of the panel with lush vine leaves and grapes. Next to a tall, wine-filled Roman glass on a table is a large silver cup in which the surrounding objects are reflected as if in a distorting mirror. To the right of it, a tall pass glass with golden-brown, white foaming beer rises above a silver-drilled tazza filled with red wine. This sequence of high, low, horizontal and upright vessels creates an exciting compositional balance. At the same time, the bread, lemon and beer harmonise in colour with the golden-brown vines and grapes on the right-hand side of the painting. While today's viewers would primarily expect a festive meal in this depiction, contemporary viewers would have understood the moral allusions, such as the wine and bread with their reference to the sacrament and the admonition to realise the transience of earthly life and possessions, in addition to the display of bourgeois prosperity. Koets, who painted a total of eleven paintings with Claesz, specialised in fruit painting and was a friend of Pieter Claesz (see Martina Brunner-Bulst: Pieter Claesz. Der Hauptmeister des Haarlemer Stillebens im 17. Jahrhundert, Lingen 2004, pp. 180-182). The increasing demand in the mid-17th century for large-format, Flemish-style still lifes may have prompted Pieter Claesz, who specialised in small cabinet paintings, to join forces with Roelof Koets. A prime example of this collaboration is the still life with Romans and Berkemeyer, apples, lush vine leaves and grapes, dated 1644 and signed by both artists, which is in the Szepmuveszeti Muzeum in Budapest (inv. no. 53.478, see ibid., cat. no. 136, ill. p. 91). The painting offered here is the second known work signed by both painters. The double signature proves that both artists regarded themselves as equal authors. Other works in which one of the two artists executed a larger part are signed by only one of them. The banquet depiction offered here, which can be dated to around 1650, is particularly impressive due to its large format and the special harmony in the joint design, as Martina Brunner-Bulst emphasises in her expert opinion. The years 1640 to 1650 were among the most productive for the painter Pieter Claesz, producing numerous large-format "banquetjes" and also smaller still lifes, such as a sumptuous oyster banquet with a large Roman and a silver salt stand from 1643, which is in the Saint Louis Art Museum (inv. no. 141:1922, see ibid., cat. no. 117, p. 272, colour illus. p. 81). These objects marked with * (asterisk) are fully subject to VAT, i.e. VAT is charged on the hammer price plus buyer's premium. Buyers who present a legally stamped export declaration will be reimbursed the VAT.