is characterized by a sublime simplicity and order that few artists of his genre ever obtained. His coloration and illustration of light in the pieces, combined with fine additive brush strokes, results in an almost unbelievable level of realism. Heda's style continued to progress with his pieces of the 1640s developing a great simplicity founded upon a "firm construction built up on broad lines." In this time, he also began to incorporate the crinkled napkin and knocked-over vases to his set of objects. This new set of objects presented a challenge to the artist to maintain cohesion and order in a clearly disordered environment. Though remnants of his more intimate pieces remained in this period, Heda began to add more objects to his works, experimenting with modified compositional styles. The 1650s saw the introduction of a wider color-scheme. This change brought more fruit and curled leaves to his works, which combined with the crinkled napkins of the previous decade, resulted in a less firm character (in contrast to the glass and metal textures that he was previously known for). Final years Heda's final years saw the artist begin the transition from the late breakfast still-life paintings he helped create, to the pronk, or display, still-life pieces of Willem Kalf in Amsterdam. His last known works were painted in 1664 (Private collection, The Hague) and 1665 (Museum del Monte, Brussels), and contained the warmer pallette of browns associated with Kalf's pieces. Though he lived until the 1680s, Heda's last known paintings were created in the 1660s. Heda died in Haarlem in 1680 or 1682. Works Willem was a contemporary and comrade of Dirck Hals, akin to him in pictorial touch and technical execution. But Heda was more careful and finished than Hals, showing considerable skill and taste in the arrangement and colouring of his chased cups, beakers and tankards of both precious and inferior metals. Heda was also associated with the Haarlem artist and fellow still life painter, Floris van Dyck. In his work, Harlemias, the Dutch poet Theodorus Schrevelius acknowledged exceptional skill at his genre of painting. Heda and his contemporary and fellow still life painter, Floris van Dyck, were "held in high esteem by the community as the best at painting their genre." As a painter of "ontbijt" or breakfast pieces, he is often compared to his contemporary Pieter Claesz. One of Heda's early masterpieces, dated 1623 and in