HEEM, JAN DAVIDSZ VAN or JOHANNES DE (c. 1600–c. 1683), Dutch painter. He was, if not the first, cer tainly the greatest painter of still life in Holland. Sometimes de Heem painted alone, sometimes in company with men of his school, Madonnas or portraits surrounded by festoons of fruit or flowers. At one time he signed with initials, at others with Johannes, at others again with the name of his father joined to his own. De Heem entered the guild of Antwerp in 1635-36, and became a burgher of that city in 1637. He steadily maintained his residence till 1667, when he moved to Utrecht, where traces of his presence are preserved in records of 1668, 1669 and 1670. It is not known when he finally returned to Antwerp, but his death is recorded in the guild books of that place. A very early picture, dated 1628, in the gallery of Gotha, bearing the signature of Johannes in full, shows that de Heem at that time was familiar with the technical habits of execution peculiar to the youth of Albert Cuyp. Out of 10o pictures or more to be met with in European galleries scarcely eighteen are dated.