Juan de Arellano

In the collection of the present owner's family for at least three generations.

The following condition report is provided by Hamish Dewar who is an external specialist and not an employee of Sotheby's: Structural Condition The canvas is unlined on a fixed wooden stretcher and inevitably for an unlined canvas of this period there are some raised lines of craquelure as well as stretcher-bar lines, all of which are slight and are presently stable. The canvas is generally rather uneven and could perhaps could be restretched onto a new keyed wooden stretcher to ensure a more even surface. The existing stretcher is clearly not the original. There is a small patch on the reverse of the canvas in the upper right as viewed from the reverse, as well as two painted numbers and some overall staining. The canvas was evidently originally on a slightly smaller stretcher. There is one very small damage to the canvas just below the upper horizontal framing edge and small losses on the left vertical framing edge. Paint Surface The paint surface has a remarkably discoloured varnish layer, as well as ingrained and surface dirt and would undoubtedly be transformed by cleaning. Inspection under ultra-violet light confirms how discoloured the varnish layers have become and how well the painting should respond to cleaning. The only retouching that appears to be identifiable under ultra-violet light is one very small spot just above the lower horizontal framing edge. There may be other retouchings beneath the opaque varnish layers that are not identifiable under ultra-violet light. The fine detail of the painting appears to be very well preserved with no evidence of abrasion or over-cleaning. Summary The painting would therefore appear to be in remarkably good and original condition with the potential to be transformed by cleaning and revarnishing. It is obviously most encouraging to find a painting of this period in its original unlined state and also apparently having never been cleaned.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Previously unpublished, this elaborate still life by the leading flower painter of seventeenth-century Spain is datable on stylistic grounds to the mid-to-late 1660s. A work of the artist’s maturity, it belongs to a group of compositions characterised by a grand profusion of flowers that distinguish themselves from his earlier, more restrained works of the 1650s and early 1660s, which are more indebted to Flemish models. While Arellano signed the vast majority of his compositions, he only dated a small number of them. These belong principally to the last decade of his life and it is by comparison with such works that a date can be established for this impressive painting.

Still life with a large array of flowers in a glass vase compares with one of the most superb examples of Arellano’s art dated 1668 that was sold in 1998 at Sotheby’s, New York, and exhibited in Madrid the same year, Still life of flowers in a glass vase.¹ Of vertical format and nearly identical dimensions, both arrangements are similarly composed in gleaming vases that rest on rough stone plinths. For his grander upright floral pieces Arellano favoured the use of this size and format, which he adopted on numerous occasions. The qualities that mark Arellano’s paintings from this period include the detailed quality of the handling, the configuration of blooms and the use of more intense chiaroscuro in their lighting. Also in support of a date in the latter half of the 1660s is the style and placement of the signature, which is very similar in this painting to that found on another flower piece by Arellano dated 1665 in a private collection in Madrid.² These two examples suggest a date between 1665 and 1668 for this Still life, which in its combination of colours and forms and the subtle reflections of its stemmed vase make it a work of consummate refinement.

We are grateful to William B. Jordan for noting that this is a particularly fine example of Arellano's output from the 1660s and for suggesting that it may have originally been paired with, or been part of a set with, the canvas in a Madrid private collection of roughly the same dimensions (80.5 by 64.5 cm.), which employs the same vase and similar pedestal.³      

1 Private collection; oil on canvas, 81.3 by 61 cm.; New York, Sotheby’s, 30 January 1998, lot 112, for $360,000. Madrid, Fundación Caja, Juan de Arellano, A. E. Pérez Sánchez ed., 1998, pp. 188–189, no. 34, reproduced in colour.

2 Madrid 1998, pp. 164–65, no. 22, reproduced in colour.

3 Madrid 1998, pp. 190–91, no. 35, reproduced in colour.