Juan de Arellano Santorcaz 1614 - 1676 Madrid

Possibly in the collection of Don Miguel Martinez de Pinillos y Saenz de Velasco during the early 19th century, but probably acquired by his son Don Antonio Martinez de Pinillos (1865 - 1923), Cadiz;
By direct descent to his daughter Doña Carmen Martinez de Pinillos, Cadiz;
Thence by family descent to the present owners. 

This elaborate still life is by the leading flower painter working in Spain during the 17th century, Juan de Arellano. On stylistic grounds it can be dated to the late 1660s or early 1670s, at which time the artist’s compositions are characterised by a highly baroque grandeur, in which the artist creates a greater profusion of flowers than depicted in his earlier, more restrained works of the 1650s and early 1660s. Although the vast majority of the artist’s compositions are signed, only a small number are dated (the majority of which belong to the last decade of the artist’s life), and it is by comparison with such works that a clear dating can be established for the present painting. The fine quality of the handling and the heightened detailing to the blooms can be compared, for example, with a Still Life of Flowers in a Wicker Basket, signed and dated 1671, which was sold New York, Sotheby’s, 11 January 1990, lot 169, for $715,000, today in the Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilbao. 

The present still life adheres to a size and format adopted on numerous occasions by the artist, for example in his Still Life of Flowers in a Basket in a private collection, Barcelona,¹ which shares in common the vertical format, similar composition and handling, as well as the palaeography and positioning of the signature.

1. See the exhibition catalogue, Juan de Arellano, Madrid 1998, pp. 224-25, cat. no. 52, reproduced.