Still-Life of Fruit

1773 · Private collection

still-life

In 1771 the artist received a commission from the young Prince of Asturias, the future Charles IV, to paint a series of still-lifes to decorate his cabinet of natural history, a private museum in his quarters in the Royal Palace. He executed a series of forty four still-lifes (now in various museums). The present work represents a still-life of apricots in a ceramic bowl, with branches of apricots and their foliage protruding outwards, together with cherries and a single branch of apricots, all arranged upon a plain table top.

About the Artist

Luis Meléndez

1716 – 1780

Spanish still-life painter, active mainly in Madrid. He is regarded as the finest Spanish painter in his speciality in the 18 th century continuing the austere traditions of the 'bodegón' established by Sanchez Cotán, as well as Velázquez and Zurbarán. He is sometimes called 'the Spanish Chardin' but he spent much of his life in poverty. He was trained by his father and L. M. van Loo in Spain. He was van Loo's assistant 1742-48. He worked in Madrid and revisited Italy before 1775. His work is rare outside Spain, but there is an example in the National Gallery in London and the Louvre in Paris has a striking self-portrait, signed and dated 1746. The self-portrait is his earliest known work, in which he looks younger than thirty.

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