Antonio Ponce

Private collection, Spain
With Caylus, Madrid, in 1992
Private collection, North America from 1998
By whom sold, ‘Property from a Distinguished Private Collection’, New York, Sotheby’s, 29 January 2009, lot 80
Purchased from the above by the present owner

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

Exhibition catalogue, El Gusto Español, Antiguos Maestros, 1992, pp. 78-81, reproduced p. 79;
Exhibition catalogue, An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, 1997, pp. 64-71, nos. 7a and 7b, reproduced pp. 66-67;
W.B. Jordan and P. Cherry, Spanish Still Life from Velázquez to Goya, exhibition catalogue, London 1995, p. 67, reproduced, p. 68, fig. 50 (Still Life with Hollyhocks and Marigolds only).
P. Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza: El bodegón español en el Siglo de Oro, Madrid, 1999, pp. 210-211, reproduced p. 436, plate CXII.

This pair of highly refined and detailed still lifes was painted in Madrid in around 1650 by Antonio Ponce, one of the leading Spanish still life painters of his day. The 17^th century witnessed the Golden Age of Spanish Painting, led by the work of artists such as Velasquez, Ribera, Murillo and Zurbaran, as well as the development of the highly specialised art of still life painting, which also saw its greatest flourishing during this time.

 

Amongst the most important Spanish still life painters working at the Royal Habsburg court in Madrid was Juan van der Hamen y León, whose paintings are widely distributed amongst museums around the world, including the Prado, Madrid, the National Gallery of Art, Washington, the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston and the National Museum of Western Art, Tokyo. The present flower still lifes are outstanding examples by Van der Hamen’s leading pupil and disciple, Antonio Ponce, who in 1628 married his master’s niece, thereby cementing personal and business ties with the family. Their position amongst the finest works ever produced by the artist is supported by their inclusion in the seminal publication on Spanish still life painting, Arte y Naturaleza: El bodegón español en el Siglo de Oro, published by Dr. Peter Cherry in 1999.

 

As exemplified in these two works, Ponce’s style is characterised by a highly detailed drawing of the still life elements, combined with a palette of soft hues, with the objects set against a light, neutral background illuminated with diffused light, a technique that finds its origins in the celebrated Still Life of Fruit in a Basket by Caravaggio in the Ambrosiana, Milan. The lighter background creates a brighter and more open feel to the paintings, in contrast to the more tenebrist pictures produced by some of Ponce’s contemporaries, such as El Labrador, who in contrast used darker backgrounds with powerful light sources from the side.

The quality of these exquisite and delicate still lifes is exceptional within Ponce’s output and their intimate scale and lack of formality lend them a sense of immediacy and modernity that make them as appealing to today’s viewers as to the audience for whom they were painted more than three hundred and fifty years ago.