Art Throb # 8: Still Life with Gilt Goblet (1635) by Willem Claesz Heda

Willem Claesz Heda (1594c. - 1680), Still Life with Gilt Goblet (1635), oil on panel, 88cm x 113 cm, Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam 

We used to draw still lifes at school – old trainers, vases of tulips, dead fish. My art GCSE coursework was mostly still lifes, which perhaps partly explains why I still love still lifes to this day. I'd never heard of this artist before, although it was nice to see a print of this on the cruise ship when we were on holiday recently. I had a hunch it was 17th Century Dutch – and it is!

On the surface there's not much to say about what appears to be a straightforwardly representative artwork, a tastefully-arranged group of inanimate objects. But most still lifes in this tradtion are allegorical, meditations on the impermanence of life. Flowers, fruit and fish will have started to spoil with visible signs of decay. When it comes to suggestions of movement, the natural decomposition of organic matter is as fast as it gets. I can see no such sign in this painting, although the bread and fish suggest this in themselves. I'm intrigued by the rolled up piece of paper on the plate on the left (perhaps it's a taper for a candle), and the cylindrical metal object at the back, with a white substance piled on top of it. More than anything, this is perhaps a technical exercise in the painting of metals, glass, liquid and textile. The light reflections make the glass, metal and fabric seem especially tactile. The gilt goblet is obviously reminiscent of the Holy Grail; that it is lying on its side is slightly disturbing.

Still lifes are everywhere – the mantelpiece, a bowl of fruit on the kitchen table, a shop window display. Even Tracey Emin's unmade bed exhibit was a still life of sorts, its opulent squalour at once alluding to the Venus tradition in art and defamiliarising it. If I were to assemble a still life about myself wild flowers would definitely be present, along with at least a couple of novels, some form of chocolate or cake, my glasses, a crochet hook and ball of wool, and a bottle of champagne – all on a lace tablecloth. But before we get too Laura Ashley saccharine, I'd probably offset this with a pack of contraceptive pills. There would be a distinct lack of technology.