Still Life with Plate of Apricots and Morello Cherries
Still Life with Plate of Apricots and Morello Cherries is by the greatest Spanish still-life painter of the 18th century, Luis Meléndez. It was sold on behalf of a Private Collection by Nicholas Hall.
Signature
Remains of a signature, lower right on the table edge: ‘Mz’
Provenance
Private Collection, United Kingdom; sold at
Sotheby’s, London, Old Master Paintings, 11 December 1991, lot 148 (as Follower of Meléndez); acquired by
Private Collection, Europe
with Nicholas Hall, by 2025
acquired by a Private Collection from the above
Bibliography
Peter Cherry, Luis Meléndez: Still Life Painter, Madrid, 2006, pp. 501, 547, reproduced cat. no. 121.
An assortment of apricots, with plump and tender flesh, dominates the foreground of this still life by Luis Meléndez. The stone fruits are shown resting on the edge of a table, piled atop one another on a plate, and artfully hanging off the vines that protrude from the background. Four morello cherries sit delicately on the table, their lustrous flesh contrasting with the dappled and velvety skin of the apricots. Each fruit is handled with a subtle tactility, which embodies Meléndez’s technical expertise and skill in depicting everyday objects with a remarkable degree of veracity. Set against a somber backdrop, this elegant composition can be dated to the height of Meléndez’s career.
This painting is a variant of a work created by Meléndez now in the Museo del Prado, which similarly features apricots and cherries resting on a table’s edge (fig. 1). The Prado bodegón is signed and dated 1773 and is part of a series of still lifes commissioned by Charles III, Prince of Asturias, and his wife, Princess Maria Luisa, to decorate his Gabinete de Historia Natural at the Palacio Real Nuevo, Madrid. The prince commissioned these works as a depiction of the four seasons—an artistic celebration of all the produce created in the Spanish climate. It is one of the final paintings created for this series, and the present work was likely executed soon thereafter, with the artist reconfiguring the composition vertically. Indeed, Meléndez frequently adapted his works from horizontal into vertical arrangements, which are more characteristically Spanish.
Known as the greatest Spanish still-life painter of the eighteenth century, Luis Meléndez was born to a family of artists in the Spanish dominion of Naples. Raised in Madrid, Meléndez trained under his father, Francisco Antonio, and studied at Madrid’s Royal Academy of Painting, later known as the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. This training is well evidenced by his self-portrait, now at the Louvre, which he created while a student (fig. 2). Meléndez then traveled to Italy to complete his artistic training in Rome, before returning to Madrid in 1753 to join his father in a commission to illuminate choir books for King Ferdinand VI. Although Meléndez’s career began with his work in miniature alongside his father, he became known for his skillfully rendered still life paintings during the final twenty years of his life. These works continue and enhance the tradition of Spanish genre paintings, following in the footsteps of seventeenth-century greats such as Francisco de Zurbarán, his son Juan, and Sánchez Cotán.