Seventeenth-century Dutch still life

I am reading a short but exquisite book by Mark Doty called Still Life with Oysters and Lemon. In it he describes and discusses (in part) various 17th-century Dutch still lifes. Words do only so much, so I decided to seek out some of the works he focuses on. 

I'll start with the one that spurred me into this brief project, because although Doty himself disparages this particular painting—or that's not the right word; he admires the skill, but he prefers more homely subject matter—I was curious as to just what a "nautilus cup" might be. So here, by Willem Kalf, Still Life with Chinese Bowl, Nautilus Cup, and Other Objects of 1662. (It is quite dark, the better to invite the eye in to settle on the items the artist wished one to contemplate most deeply.)

Jan Davidsz de Heem also painted nautilus cups—the brighter style here, I gather,  a reflection of its earlier date, dark backgrounds being a stylistic evolution:

Nautilus Cup with Silver Vessels, 1632

This imagery in turn led me to a brief disquisition on nautilus cups, which were quite the thing just then. Like this one, of South German or Flemish provenance, from 1575/1625.

Though notice the other trope in these two paintings: lemons, always with a strip of delicate peel, symbolizing wealth, power, and dominance in trade.

But back to Doty: here is the piece, also by de Heem, that he fell so in love with that he was moved to explore it and associated images, which led then to memories, feelings, and yearnings. Followed by a few other of the paintings that he mentions. (As always, click on the image to see large.)

Jan Davidsz de Heem, Still Life with a
Glass and Oysters, c. 1640

Martimus Nellius, Still Life with Quinces,
Medlars, and a Glass, 1669/1719

Ossias Beert the Elder, Dishes with Oysters, Fruit,
and Wine, c. 1620–25

Pieter Claesz, Herring with Bread and Beer, 1636

Adriaen Coorte, Still Life with
Asparagus, 1703

Here, I will pause to quote Doty himself, on this painting by Coorte, which he spends several pages describing and wondering about. He has just outlined the colors that observers, and painters, of asparagus mention when it comes to appreciating, and depicting, lifelike spears.

Purple, black, indigo, ultramarine—not the colors convention would associate with this vegetable, and yet in Coorte's astonishing painting one sees the fierce veracity of the results: here, in all its pronged, nuanced glory, a bundle of stalks resides in the full, fleshy resonance of its three-hundred-year-old presence. They look edible, earth-scented, alive; no matter that the lead white had reacted over time with something in the oil medium in which it is suspended, lending the stalks such a pronounced transparency that you can see, right through the stalks, the edge of the stone surface which supports them. That ghostliness only adds to their charm.
     All of which simply begs the question . . . why.

Perhaps you see now why I felt compelled to seek out some of the paintings in question. Doty's description, though provocative and resonant, goes only so far. Which is not to fault his treatment, not at all. His was a bigger project than simply describing paintings. But seeing the works in question helped add further dimension to his words. Simply that.

Doty mentions many other still lifes in passing, but I will end with this, a joke from 1670, Trompe l'oeil: The Reverse of a Framed Painting, by Cornelis Norbertus Gijsbrechts. Now, I'd call that darn modern.