Lot 49: LUIS MELÉNDEZ

LUIS MELÉNDEZ NAPLES 1716 - 1780 MADRID STILL LIFE WITH CUCUMBERS AND TOMATOES TOGETHER WITH A KNIFE AND OTHER KITCHEN UTENSILS UPON A WOODEN TABLE oil on canvas, the upper edge with a later extension of 1 in.; 2.5 cm. 35.5 by 48 cm.; 14 by 18 7/8 in.

London, The Arcade Gallery, The Art of Still Life 1600-1950, 1953, no. 18.

E. Tufts, "Luis Meléndez, Still-Life Painter 'Sans Pareil'", in Gazette des Beaux-Arts, series VI, 100, 1366, November 1982, p. 159, no. 57;
E. Tufts, Luis Meléndez. Eighteenth Century Master of Spanish Still Life, Columbia 1985, p. 97, no. 67, reproduced p. 178, fig. 67;
P. Cherry, Luis Meléndez. Still Life Painter, Madrid 2006, p. 537, no. 67, reproduced p. 449, fig. 67.

With The Arcade Gallery, London;
Acquired from the above by the father of the present owner in 1953;
Thence by family descent.

Unseen and its whereabouts unknown for over half a century, this beautiful bodegón epitomises the style and qualities that made Meléndez one of the greatest painters of still lifes in the eighteenth century. Typically, its subject is one of quiet simplicity, and consists of nothing more than the ingredients for a simple salad, set upon the rough hewn wooden planks of a kitchen table. There is a bottle of vinegar, an olive oil funnel, a knife and a salt cellar. Behind them is a large earthenware bowl of Alcorcón manufacture from Madrid, and a stack of plates from Puente del Arzobispo, one of which acts as a cover for the larger bowl. In front of them are strewn a pile of cucumbers and two tomatoes. The mixture of the fruits and the kitchen utensils allows Meléndez to explore not only the contrast between the brighter colours of the former and the neutral tones of the latter, but also the contrasts of their contours and between rough and polished surfaces. The diagonals and foreshortening of the seemingly artlessly tumbled cucumbers in fact subtly create the effect of depth in the composition. Meléndez renders the texture and form of his objects with extraordinary skill, setting them against a dark neutral background and defining them in a sharp but diffused light, in which the subtlest glints of light are picked out and used to convey the different textures of cork, ceramic and metal. In this simple but highly realistic style Meléndez continued and developed the tradition of Spanish still life painting established by his countrymen Juan Sánchez Cotán and Francisco de Zurbarán in the previous century.

The design of this still life is clearly closely related to Meléndez's slightly larger painting of the same subject, signed and dated 1774, which is today in the Prado in Madrid (Fig. 1). The Prado painting is the last of a series of forty-four paintings executed between 1771 and 1774 for Charles, Prince of Asturias (1748-1819) for his New Cabinet of Natural History; the single most important commission of the artist's career.υ1 In the present work, the disposition of the olive oil funnel (minus its ring stopper), earthenware bowl, plates and cucumbers remains the same. The compositon is condensed by the omission of the salt cellar on the right of the Prado painting and the introduction of a smaller and flatter cellar on the extreme left of this design. The vinegar jug has been turned around, so that its handle now faces away from the spectator. The number of tomatoes has been cut from five to two, and a knife has been introduced to the centre foreground, projecting out over the edge of the wooden table. The repetition of such a design, presumably painted for another client at the same time he was working for his royal patron, was not unknown in Meléndez's oeuvre; of the Asturias commission, for example, the Still life of apricots and cherries of 1773 is known in another smaller variant of similar size to the present work (37.5 by 50 cm.), as is the Still life of bream, oranges and kitchen utensils of the previous year, both now in private collections.υ2 The order in which these canvases was produced is not known, but it is reasonable to assume that the royal commission pictures were painted first and were followed by their variants while the prime versions were in the painter's studio. We know that one of these, the variant of the Bream and oranges was also dated 1772, indicating that it was painted alongside or just after the royal painting, and this might in turn suggest that the present canvas may well have been executed in or very shortly after its royal counterpart of 1774. The olive oil strainer, the jug of vinegar and the large alcorcón bowl were evidently favoured possessions of the painter for they recur in numerous other works, but the use of the beautifully painted little triangular salt cellar appears to be unique in the artist's known oeuvre.


1. Inv. no. P-930, canvas, 41.6 by 62.5 cm. For this, and a discussion of the entire commission, see P. Cherry & C. Garrido in Luis Meléndez. La serie de bodegones para el Princípe de Asturias, exhibiton catalogue, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 2004, pp. 369-73 et passim.
2. See, for example, Luis Meléndez. Still LIfes, exhibition catalogue, Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, 16 June - 5 September 2004, cat. nos. 18, 19, 37 and 38, all reproduced.