Willem KALF (1619/22-1693), In the Chamber

oil, parquet board; 31.5 x 26.5 cm;
Signed at left edge: KALF;
On the reverse, lacquer circular stamp: VAN DIEMEN & Co / LA HAYE.

A painting of special historical and artistic value for the national heritage, which, according to the decision of the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sports dated January 4, 2021, has not been granted permission for permanent export abroad.
"The work was created in the so-called Parisian period of Willem Kalf's oeuvre [1642-1646] and refers to the Flemish painting tradition, among other works by David Tenieras the Younger. The painting titled. "In the chamber" is characterized by the artist's mastery of the painting technique, which is particularly evident in the excellent development of chiaroscuro, modeled on the works of the master Rembrandt. In addition, the composition in question, is maintained in shades of red with emerald green, and blue with varying degrees of saturation of yellows, which is a color scheme characteristic of Willem Kalf, often used in his other works (...) The work in question, has high historical, artistic and scientific value, and is pioneering on a world or national scale in terms of style, typology and technicality, as it is a very good example of seventeenth-century genre painting (...)"
Excerpt from the decision of the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sports

" (...) The work bears the red lacquer seal of the Gallery van Diemen & Co. founded in Berlin in 1918, which specialized in Dutch art. According to the opinion writer's analysis, the aforementioned work was sold after 1923 in The Hague, where a branch of the aforementioned gallery was opened. Ms. Aleksandra Janiszewska, notes that in 1924, in the same gallery was sold a painting by W. Kalf entitled: "Rural interior with a woman at the fireplace" with an almost identical arrangement in terms of the composition of the scene with the opinionated work, as the difference of representation is in the costume of the figure of the woman shown in the open door. (...) According to Ms. Aleksandra Janiszewska's analysis, "it is difficult to say whether we are dealing with the same painting, repainted in the part of one of the figures, or with an extremely accurate repetition of the composition painted by Willem Kalf, which is highly probable."
Excerpt from the decision of the Minister of Culture, National Heritage and Sports

"Kalf's works are in many museums around the world, while his works are not present in Poland. The only painting of uncertain attribution is in the National Museum in Warsaw, Nieborów Branch. It is Still Life with Cabbage, (...) coming from the collection of Mikołaj Radziwiłł of Nieborów. (...) In world museums, in addition to Kalf's still-life paintings, there are also paintings of interiors painted during his stay in Paris. For example, in Paris at the Institut Nederlanais, Frits Lugt collection, there is Interior of a Kitchen, circa 1642 (...) at the Detroit Institute of Arts Corner of a Barn, circa 1643 (...), or at the Staadliches Museum in Schwerin the painting Old Woman in the Kitchen, circa 1645 (...). In the collection of the Metropolitan Museum in New York, you can see a painting by Kalfa depicting a similar composition - the same kitchen interior with a woman at the hearth, but positioned en face to the viewer, and with vegetables scattered on the floor - Interior of a Kitchen, ca. 1642-1644 (...).
Excerpt from an opinion piece by Irena Ball