Still Life with the Drinking-Horn of the Saint Sebastian Archers' Guild, Lobster and Glasses

The silver-mounted horn at the centre of this table was a real object, and it still exists. It belonged to Amsterdam's guild of Saint Sebastian, the city's archers, who passed it from hand to hand at their shooting contests, and it is now in the Amsterdam Museum. It was already almost a century old when Kalf painted it around 1653, the year he settled in the city. Look at the silver foot. It shows Sebastian, the guild's patron saint, tied to a tree and shot with arrows while Roman soldiers stand guard. The picture was probably ordered by one or more members of the guild. Around the horn Kalf laid out the luxuries of a rich table, a cooked lobster, lemons, which were rare and expensive, fine glasses and a Turkish carpet. In the shadows beneath the tabletop a small Cupid, another archer, keeps up the theme of arrows.