Still Life with a Chinese Bowl, Nautilus Cup and Other Objects

The most striking thing on this table is the nautilus shell, mounted in silver-gilt as a cup. Shells like this reached Holland from the Indian Ocean on Dutch East India Company ships, and goldsmiths turned them into showpieces for collectors. The type Kalf painted here was made in the Utrecht workshop of the goldsmith Jan Jacob van Royenstein in the late 16th century, decades before this picture of 1662. A figure of Atlas carries the shell. On top rears a sea monster with Neptune, trident in hand, standing on its head, and the monster is swallowing a small figure, read either as Jonah or as Ulysses. Beside the cup stand a late Ming bowl decorated in relief with the eight Taoist immortals and a wine glass with a delicate cover, on a Herat carpet with large flowers. Kalf rarely dated his work, and this canvas is among the few he both signed and dated.