Cornelis Jacobz Delff

CORNELIS JACOBSZ DELFF (Gouda, c. 1570 – Delft, 1643).
“Still Life with a Wine Cooler, Quinces, and an Artichoke, Singing Birds, a Swan, and a Plate of Sea Bream Next to a Large Northern Pike on a Table.”
Oil on panel.
Work registered in the RKD in The Hague under Nos. 113783/84 and 402970.
With a monogram in the lower left corner, currently barely visible.
Measurements: 101.3 x 139.9 cm; 131.2 x 168.7 cm (frame).
Still Life by Cornelis Jacobsz. Delff, a Dutch artist specializing in depictions of kitchens, markets, and still lifes of great compositional richness. The attribution to Delff was recently confirmed by the specialist Dr. Fred Meijer (September 10, 2025), and the work is registered in the RKD in The Hague under numbers 113783/84 and 402970.
The painting dates from the early stage of Delff’s career, when the artist was creating large-scale kitchen and market compositions characterized by an abundance of food, utensils, and animals, and occasionally featuring human figures.Of particular interest is the relationship between the abundance of food and animals and the refined treatment of the metal objects. On the far left are various copper vessels and utensils, whose surfaces allow the artist to explore one of the fundamental interests that would dominate his later work: the effects of light on copper, brass, and tin. This preoccupation with the reflective qualities of metals would eventually become one of Delff’s defining traits and lead him, in the second half of his career, to progressively scale down his compositions until he focused almost exclusively on kitchen utensils.
Delff belongs to the second generation of kitchen still-life painters in the Netherlands, which emerged from the tradition established by Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer. His training allows us to trace an interesting artistic lineage: in 1595, he studied in Haarlem under Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, a Mannerist master who had been a pupil of Pieter Pietersz. I, himself the son and pupil of Pieter Aertsen. Thus, Delff’s work is part of a pictorial tradition that links directly to the first great masters of the Flemish and Dutch kitchen still life. Within Delff’s body of work, the presence of the swan is of particular interest. It is a relatively uncommon motif in his still lifes.
Cornelis Jacobsz spent virtually his entire professional career in Delft. He was the son and pupil of the well-known portrait painter Jacob Willemsz. Delff. His younger brothers, Rochus and Willem, also trained under their father and became portrait painters. In 1595, Cornelis studied in Haarlem under Cornelis Cornelisz. van Haarlem, and before 1610, he returned to Delft, where he joined the painters’ guild in 1613. He remained in the city until his death in 1643. His body of work, which is relatively small and rarely seen on the market, occupies a prominent place in the evolution of Dutch kitchen still life.