Pieter de Ring

PIETER DE RING Circa 1615 – Leiden – 1660 Pieter de Ring was born in Leiden, or possibly at Ypres, where his parents came from and where his elder brother was born. Reputedly, he started his career as a mason. Houbraken reported from hearsay that an employer paid for the lessons that de Ring took from Jan Davidsz. de Heem. If this is true, de Ring would have had to go to Antwerp for his training, where de Heem had settled by 1636, but he has not been traced in any record there. Whatever the case, de Ring was clearly influenced by de Heem’s still lifes from the late 1640s and early 1650s. Pieter de Ring was one of the founding members of the Leiden painters’ guild in 1648 and worked there until his death. His burial in the Pieterskerk was recorded in September 1660. His earliest known dated work (indistinct, 1645 or 1647) combines a Haarlem (Heda) idiom with Leiden (Dou) lighting. Some younger Leiden still-life painters, notably Harmen Loeding, Johannes Hannot and Nicolaes van Gelder, were clearly influenced by de Ring and were perhaps his pupils. In the past, the works of these artists have often been confused. Pieter de Ring signed many of his works in the ordinary way (in full or with a monogram) and signed his last known work in 1660 with the Latinised form of his name, P. Ab Annulo. In addition, he repeatedly used a gold ring by way of signature, occasionally in combination with a written signature. This ring, usually tucked onto the flank of the still life, is a simple model, inset with a small stone. If Pieter de Ring did not go to Antwerp to receive tuition from de Heem, it is uncertain how precisely he could have come into contact with that artist’s works. However, the latter’s fame had certainly spread outside of Antwerp and there is some evidence that de Heem was selling works to collectors in Holland by 1650. Consequently, de Ring could also very well have seen work by de Heem in his own surroundings. Unfortunately very few dated works by de Ring have come down to us, so it is difficult to analyse the development of his oeuvre in detail. In any case he had fully developed his style and technique by the mid-1650s and it must be said that although he was already active during the late 1640s, this mature style cannot be seen independently from de Heem’s work from the first few years of the following decade. In view of de Ring’s early death in 1660, this also means that the greater part of his oeuvre, as we now know it, was produced within less than ten or even seven or eight years. In view of the artist’s meticulous technique, it is not surprising that his total extant oeuvre comprises no more than a few dozen paintings at most. Notwithstanding de Heem’s substantial influence, Pieter de Ring was a great talent and his work possesses a strong degree of individuality. While de Heem preferred horizontal compositions for his smaller still lifes most of the time, de Ring appears to have opted mainly for vertical arrangements and it would appear that he tried to outdo de Heem in terms of lavishness. This painting, with its tightly grouped arrangement and upright format, is characteristic of his mature years in the mid-1650s. Also typical are the strong contrasts of light and dark and the rich but subtle palette of red, yellow and green. The green tablecloth is a particularly sensuous shade of emerald, which offsets the glowing pinks and reds of the prawns and the grapes. De Ring has the ability to describe objects as if lit from within, notably the flesh of the lemons and the grapes. The complex, transparent shape of the Venetian jug, its lion pattern and white wine within reacting differently to the slanting light, is a tour-de-force of painting. Both the selection of luxury items and the painterly handling recall the work of de Ring’s mentor Jan Davidsz. de Heem, whose Antwerp sojourn brought some of the opulence of Flemish still life to Dutch painting. However, de Ring makes this genre fully his own, powerfully evoking the fruits of the earth and the pleasures of the table in a way that still delights us three and a half centuries later. The work of Pieter de Ring is represented in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam; the Museum Boymans-van Beuningen, Rotterdam; the Wallace Collection, London; the Städel Museum, Frankfurt and the Johnson Collection, Philadelphia.