Attributed to Juan van der Hamen y León (Madrid 1596-1632)
A still life with a basket of quinces on a wooden table and damsons hanging from strings on either side
oil on canvas
39.6 x 57.8cm (15 9/16 x 22 3/4in).
Footnotes:
Only a handful of artists in Spain would have been capable of painting this hitherto unknown early still life which may, with its centrepiece flanked by fruit hanging from strings, be compared to the unsigned Still life of a Faience Fruit Bowl with Passion Fruit, Crab Apples and Pears, which was thought by the distinguished van der Hamen scholar, the late William B. Jordan to be the artist's work and date from circa 1621 (oil on canvas, 54 x 65 cm., Serra de Alzaga collection, Valencia; see W. B. Jordan, Juan van der Hamen y León and the Court of Madrid, New Haven, 2006, no. 6). The wooden table is unusual in the oeuvre of this artist who more often went on to employ light coloured marble ledges; but a similarly coloured wooden table was employed by Hamen y León in his early Still Life of Sweets and Glassware, in the Museo del Prado which is oil on canvas, signed and dated, 1622 (op. cit. no. 4). It was during this early period that this master established the working pattern of his studio practice and like most early still life painters in Europe, he established a range of picture formats, compositional types and favoured objects that became his stock in trade. Jordan, after 40 years of research on the artist, wrote in his monograph: 'Most of the compositional types for which Van der Hamen is best known are represented by superb examples dated 1621 and 1622.'

Adopting some of the essential compositional devices employed by Sánchez Cotán, such as the hanging of fruit and game from strings, van der Hamen fashioned a type of still life uniquely suited to his public at court. In doing this he is believed to have been aware of developments in still life painting outside of Spain as well – such as could be seen in the works of north Italians such as Panfilo Nuvolone and Fede Galizia, or those of Flemish masters like Osias Beert the Elder, Clara Peeters and Frans Snyders. 'Although his fame today has been eclipsed by the long career of Velásquez,' in Jordan's words 'Van der Hamen's star was very bright when his Sevillian rival was just finding his way at the court of the young King Philip IV. When that fire was unexpectedly extinguished at the age of thirty-five, some of his contemporaries, such as the playwright Juan Pérez de Montalvan, lamented the passing of 'the greatest Spaniard of his art who ever lived'.'
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