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
Madrid, A la sombra de Goya. Pinturas y artes decorativas en colecciones particulares, 1999, no. 37; Dublin, National Gallery of Ireland, Luis Meléndez, Still Lifes, 16 June - 5 September 2004, no. 19.
Literature
Luis Meléndez, Still Lifes, exhibition catalogue, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin, 16 June - 5 September 2004, pp. 118-119, cat. no. 19, reproduced pp. 2 (detail) and 119, entry by Peter Cherry.
Provenance
PROPERTY FROM A SPANISH PRIVATE COLLECTION
Notes
This jewel-like still life is by one of the greatest still life painters of the 18th century, Luis Meléndez. Through its simplicity of design, subtle modelling and harmonious lighting, it represents one of the artist's most beautiful independent studies of fruit. The aesthetic beauty of the painting is further enhanced by the remarkable state of preservation in which it remains today.
Luis Meléndez trained under his father Francisco Antonio Meléndez (1682 - 1752), a specialist royal portrait miniaturist, who was instrumental in the encouragement of Philip V to establish an academy of fine arts in Madrid, which he eventually founded in 1744, making the artist an honorary director of painting. Luis Meléndez was one of the first students admitted into the new academy (which was later named the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in 1753), where he rapidly excelled in the art of drawing, an event celebrated in his handsome self-portrait (and remarkably the only known portrait by Meléndez) of 1746, now in the Musée du Louvre, Paris (see Luis Meléndez, Still Lifes, under Literature, p. 13, reproduced figure 1). The highly accomplished skill displayed in this portrait reflects the experience gained by the artist during his apprenticeship to the royal portrait painter Louis-Michel van Loo from 1738 until 1744. Following a quarrel between Francisco Antonio and the director Giovanni Domenico Olivieri on 15th June 1748 however, Luis was expelled from the Academy and was subsequently sent by his father to Rome to continue his artistic studies. In 1753, after four years in the Eternal City, he was recalled by his father to assist with a prestigious commission from Ferdinand VI to illuminate a new set of choir books for the Royal Chapel, to replace those lost in the fire of the Alcázar in 1734. Despite the high acclaim which his illuminations (which show early signs of his skilful depiction of inanimate objects) received at court, Luis' subsequent four petitions to be appointed royal painter were declined by Charles III. It seems likely that Meléndez's archaic miniaturist style and lack of experience beyond that specialised work counted against him, at a time when the royal court required artists adept in producing large-scale works in fresco and canvas (such as Corrado Giaquinto) to decorate the new Palacio Real, as well as proven portrait painters to promote the recent accesion of Charles III in 1759. On completion of his royal illuminations it appears that Meléndez received no further commissions at court and as a result the artist began to turn in desperation to the subject which ironically would earn him enduring international fame - still life painting.
It is no co-incidence therefore that the artist's earliest known still lifes date from around 1759-60. Despite the important tradition of still life painting during the Spanish Golden Age, the genre had dramatically declined by the second half of the 18th century, with none of the court painters being regular practicioners of the art. For Meléndez, still lifes were a relatively easy commodity to sell, and would typically have been painted on speculation of finding a buyer (rather than on commission). It seems that during the 1760s and 1770s he largely cornered the market in Madrid, being the only significant still life painter working there at that time. In 1771 however the artist received a key and extensive 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. This celebrated series of fourty four still lifes, today divided between the Museo del Prado (39), the Patrimonio Nacional (3) and the Museo Nacional de Escultura (1), constitutes nearly half of the artist's known oeuvre and represents the seminal work of his career. The period between winning the commission in 1771 and January 1772 must have been a time of intense activity for Meléndez, for by the end of this period he had delivered most of the pictures which would eventually make up the series of fourty four paintings (albeit a small number of paintings were already in his studio before he won the commission).
The present work was almost certainly painted the year after the artist's completion of the majority of the series of still lifes for the Prince of Asturias, in 1773. Although it differs markedly in detail and configuration of the fruit and branches, the overall composition relates to a painting by Meléndez (oil on canvas, 41 by 62 cm.), signed and dated 1773, which was one of his final works from the royal series, and today is in the Museo del Prado, Madrid (see op. cit., pp. 116-17, cat. no. 18, reproduced). A close comparison between the two works reveals that although the artist broadly follows the overall mise-en-scène of the royal painting, a great deal of new invention has been invested in the present work, for example in the three additional branches of fruit (which carry new arrangements of three, two and a single apricot), and the new configuration of apricots within the bowl. It seems likely that the artist painted the present work whilst the royal painting was still in his workshop, and may not be implausible that this variant was commissioned by a passing patron who strongly admired the overall type. The practice of painting a variant of a work from the 'master series' for the Prince of the Asturias is not uncommon in Meléndez's oeuvre, as demonstrated by the existence of a number of other such examples. A close comparison of these known variants makes clear that, as in the present work, the artist in each case took considerable care in the rearrangement of the compositions and in the introduction of a high level of new invention distinguishing them from the royal prototypes. This is amply demonstrated, for example, in the artist's painting of a Still Life with Salmon, Lemon and Kitchen Utensils, today in the Museo del Prado, and its variant in a private collection, Barcelona (see Luis Meléndez, Bodegones, exhibition catalogue, Madrid, Museo del Prado, 17 February - 16 May 2004, pp. 226 -229, cat. nos. 36 and 37, reproduced); as well as in his Still Life with Bream and Oranges (see op. cit., p. 231, cat. no. 39, reproduced p. 233 ) and Still Life with Partridges (op. cit., p. 219, cat. no. 33, reproduced p. 221), both today in the Masaveu Collection and both deriving from paintings from the royal series, now in the Museo del Prado.
The present work demonstrates Luis Meléndez's exceptional abililty to render still life objects with a remarkable degree of realism and verisimilitude. The forms of the fruit are softly modelled in subtle shifts of colour, infused by an overall light which at once unifies the objects and defines their precise texture - the velvety skin of the apricots, the translucent form of the cherries and the shiny surfaces of the leaves. The lightness and gracefulness with which the forms are treated marks a departure from the greater solidity which permeates the objects in the artist's paintings of the 1760s, and the overall trompe l'oeil effect is heightened through the visual deceipt of the single apricot and sprig of leaves hanging over the ledge in the foreground. This remarkably beautiful painting is a testament to the reasons for which the artist was highly exalted during his lifetime, and for which he is today considered to be one of the greatest still life painters of the 18th century.
