Antonio Ponce

Private collection, Spain;
With Galeria Caylus de Arte, Madrid, 1992;
Acquired by the present collector in 1998.

 

Madrid, Galeria Caylus, El Gusto Español Antiguos Maestros, 1992;
London, The Mathiesen Gallery, An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, 1997, cat. nos. 7a and 7b.

El Gusto Español Antiguos Maestros, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 1992, pp. 78-81, reproduced p. 79;
W.B. Jordan and P. Cherry, Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya, exhibition catalogue, London 1995, p. 67, reproduced, p. 68, fig. 50 (only Hollyhocks and Marigolds);
W.B. Jordan, An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, exhibition catalogue, London 1997, pp. 64-71, cat. nos. 7a and 7b, reproduced pp. 66 and 67.

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. Both of these paintings have been recently restored and framed and should be hung as is. The canvases have been lined with glue. The paint layers are stable. They have been retouched and varnished, most likely at the same time. The actual floral arrangement and vases in both pictures are in very healthy condition. Slight weakening in the base of each vase is still visible and some of the shadows of the leaves on the stone plinth are also quite worn, yet the still lives themselves and the vases are in robust condition. The backgrounds in both pictures however, have received quite a fair amount of restoration, yet it has been beautifully applied. It seems that the edges have been strengthened or even possibly extended slightly, but in our opinion correctly, and any conservation seems to be almost entirely confined to areas other than the still lives themselves. The pictures should be hung as is.
"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."

Antonio Ponce was one of a generation of painters active in Madrid that appealed to the emerging market of middle-class Spanish collectors.  While he was occasionally favored with royal patronage (for example, he was one of a group of painters that was hired in 1638 as part of a project to decorate the Buen Retiro palace), his major source of income appears to have been the open art market. In response to what must have been the demand of that market, he executed a number of "unofficial" royal portraits to be sold "on speculation" in order to supplement his income; however, the court cracked down on such unregulated depictions of the royal family, and Ponce was one of a group of artists whose work was reviewed and presumably either "corrected" or destroyed.¹ However, none of his work received the critical acclaim or commercial success that his highly accomplished still lifes did, of which these two canvases are amongst the finest examples.

The present pair of paintings exemplify Ponce's personal interpretation of the Hispano-Flemish still-life tradition in which he had been trained. In both their style and compositional motifs, they demonstrate in particular the influence of Juan van der Hamen, who had been his teacher in Madrid from 1624-1628. Ponce often directly quoted compositional motifs from his master's work, such as the use of stepped ledges to display his still-lifes, as seen in a painting offered Christie's, New York, October 3, 2001 (lot 59). Ponce and van der Hamen's relationship was further strengthened in 1628 when Ponce married van der Hamen's niece, Francisca de Alfaro.

The present pictures however, while utilizing the skills acquired by Ponce during his training, also reflect his own unique and distinctive method of painting. The flowers, crisp and linear, are set against a grey, tonal background, a practice first made popular by Caravaggio in his famous Basket of Fruit in the Ambrosiana. This is a distinct divergence from the van der Hamen convention which follows more closely the traditional, dark background of many Netherlandish and Flemish still-life painters. The juxtaposition of the fleshy petals and stark background allow the flowers to separate from the background and stand out, thus showing their careful modeling and shading. William Jordan has described these works as those which "appeal most to the modern eye" within Ponce's entire oeuvre.²

1.  See W.B. Jordan, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, 1985, p. 172.
2.   W.B. Jordan, An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, exhibition catalogue, The Mathiesen Gallery, London 1997, p. 65.