Jan Jansz van de Velde (1620–1662), Still Life with a Pitcher and Smoking Paraphernalia, 1650s. Oil on oak panel, 43.4 x 32.4 cm © Budapest Museum of Fine Arts (190)

By the early seventeenth century, smoking was widely enjoyed throughout the Netherlands, which provided subject matter for painters of genre pieces as well as still lifes. The tabakje, or tobacco still life, became fashionable from the 1620s onwards, and one of its most significant exponents was Jan van de Velde III, who came from a dynasty of painters in Haarlem. Although the harmful effects of smoking were entirely unknown at the time, the tobacco, the wick and the pipe appear in the painting together with the accoutrements of other sinful pleasures: playing cards, and a stoneware jug decorated with the coat of arms of Amsterdam. The carefully arranged composition, focusing on just a few objects and featuring a reduced palette, recalls the table still lifes of Pieter Claesz., while the tight cropping of the picture reminds us of the works of Jan Treck.