Rotterdam 1619 – 1638?
On 3 November 1619 Jan Jansz. Kalf and his wife Machtelt Gerrits (van Proyen) had their newborn son – the seventh child, at least – baptized in Rotterdam. In his earliest childhood Willem Kalf must have grown up in considerable affluence. His father was a successful merchant and a member of the City Council. When Willem was six years old, his father died. Jan Kalf’s widow carried on her husband’s textile trade but seems to have been less successful at it.

It is not known who awakened in Willem the desire to become an artist. Information about his parents’ business and private connections is sparse. Being textile merchants, however, they might have supplied canvas to artists. His mother lent money to Maerten Balckeneynde, the city’s most important art dealer, in 1631. Of significance may also be the fact that the family was related to one of Rotterdam’s most famous artists, Willem Pietersz. Buytewech.

The Hague, 1638 – 1640?
Until recently it was not known that Kalf also lived for some time in The Hague. He is referred to in a document dated February 1638 as “residing here in s-Gravenhage”. The earliest painting attributed to Kalf is dated 1638 and thus might have originated in The Hague. A second work, no longer extant today, is dated 1639 and shows the prospect of a city, painted in the manner of Jan van Goyen. Van Goyen settled in The Hague in 1632 and it can be assumed that Kalf during his time there was influenced by van Goyen’s paintings. Around 1640 Willem Kalf, young but having already completed his training as a painter, must have gone on journeys, whose first destinations are not recorded. All that is certain is that he stayed in Paris from 1642 onwards.

Paris c. 1642 – 1645
Many of Kalf’s pictures – “farm interiors” as well as still lifes – originated in Paris, and Kalf evidently had no small influence on painters there. But little is recorded about his time in Paris. This period of Kalf’s life did not become known until the 19th century, and the information is indirect, coming by way of a biography of his fellow-artist Philippe Vleughels, whom Kalf assisted upon his arrival in Paris. From what is known to date, Kalf’s stay in Paris lasted hardly longer than three years.

Back in Holland
In the autumn of 1646 Kalf was back in Rotterdam, the city of his birth, albeit only for a short time; and it is doubtful whether he was active there again as a painter. Not until 1649 is he reported in the records as living in Hoorn. That Kalf chose to move to this small West Frisian town is remarkable; the market there for works of art was certainly very small. It is established that Kalf settled in Hoorn and that there in 1651 he married the minister´s daughter Cornelia Pluvier, with whom he had four children. In 1653 Kalf and his wife moved to Amsterdam; they lived there until Kalf’s death.
In July 1653 Willem Kalf was living in the home of Johan le Thor on the Singel in Amsterdam. Le Thor was a merchant; he was one of the directors of the West India Company; and he was related to Kalf’s wife. He possessed not only paintings and silverware but also Turkish rugs, porcelain and a few rarities. Kalf’s first Pronkstilleven or opulent still life is dated 1653, and Le Thor’s treasures may have been available to him as models to paint from.
Kalf lived for more than forty years in Amsterdam; it is odd indeed that hardly anything is recorded about him there. His name does not appear in the land register, and no will is extant. Contemporary sources do note that his paintings were highly esteemed by contemporaries and that he could be sure of attracting a circle of collectors.
Contemporary inventories indicate that his paintings brought about 30 to 40 guilders, a good price, although not one that put him with the best-paid artists of his time. His pictures are listed mainly in Amsterdam inventories, but they were also bought by collectors in Haarlem and The Hague. It is astonishing that not one apprentice of Kalf’s is known by name. Presumably he had a small studio in which he worked alone or employed only a small staff.
Towards the end of his life, Kalf’s creative vitality seems to have waned; this is inferable at least from his oeuvre as it is known to date. His last dated work is marked 1680. The cause for the decline in artistic production lies in the realm of speculation. There are indications that he devoted himself increasingly to the art trade – by no means an unusual livelihood for an artist of his time, and one that he had pursued earlier. Reportedly there was also an illness which must have impaired his craftsmanship.
Willem Kalf died in 1693. In the account of Arnold van Houbraken, a biographer of artists, on the evening of 31 July Kalf was on his way home after meeting an art dealer named Zomer when he stumbled and fell forward on his chest. “He felt unwell, but without giving further thought to the aftereffects he went to bed, and by the time the clock struck ten he was already a corpse.”