Image: Jan Davidsz de Heem “Still Life with a Glass and Oysters” (
Normally we interrupt our weekday postings of restaurant reviews and related content to post about art on Saturday. This week we had only one post. It is a page of resources to support the D.C. restaurant industry in this time of crisis.
Nonetheless, for our own sanity we felt it was necessary to do something nice today and return to art. So, today’s post continues the series we have been doing on still life painting. It is from another Dutch painter, Jan Davidsz de Heem. Davidz de Heem was a leading painter in what was called the “Pronkstilleven” style meaning ‘ostentatious’, ‘ornate’ or ‘sumptuous’ that rose in the 1640s in Antwerp.
This painting is in the collection of the Met in NYC. Here is the Met’s description:
“This still life was one of the first paintings acquired by The Met, part of the Founding Purchase of 1871. It combines some of the most frequent props of Dutch still life—a lemon peel, the type of glass known as a roemer, and oysters, which were believed at the time to have aphrodisiac properties. The diminutive scale (9 7/8 x 7 1/2 in.) indicates it was destined for a collector’s cabinet, meant to be pored over by a single viewer.”
Speaking of oysters…Jamie Leeds, the woman behind Hank’s Oyster Bar in D.C. announced that it is giving all gift card proceeds go to staff relief. There is a t-shirt you can buy too for $50 that also goes to help the staff.
If you are looking for other ways to help laid-off employees, or buy gift cards to support restaurants, or find out who has take-out/delivery options, you can find many links on our resources page.
Follow us on social media for updates. We are on FB, Insta, and Twitter. Click on the icons at the top or bottom of this page.
One day we’ll get back to writing about restaurants. If you are looking for something to read or distract you, here are our D.C. restaurant listings and reviews. There is also a four part analysis of the Washingtonian Top 100 to pass the time (HERE, HERE, HERE and HERE).
Finally, for more art, you should check out the National Gallery of Art page, which has pushed a lot of resources up to give you link to its collection and educational program while it is off limits. They are also doing daily “tours” of the sections of the museum on Facebook and Instagram.