LUIS MELÉNDEZ : STILL LIFES

Exhibitions of still lifes, considered a minor genre for much too long, are not that many. Combining a selection of works from his own collections and paintings coming from European and North American museums as well as private collections, the Museo del Prado succeeded in assembling 40 major works by Luis Meléndez (1716-1780), the most prominent 18th-century still life painter in Spain, together with objects of that period comparable to those represented by the artist.

All sorts of food stuffs which the Spanish climate produces...

Having studied with Louis-Michel van Loo, mastering portraiture and probably history painting, Meléndez worked independently as a miniaturist before he specialised in still lifes. He produced a series of 44 paintings for the Prince of Asturias, the future Charles IV, describing them as an amusing cabinet with all sorts of food stuffs which the Spanish climate produces. Those are almost all in the Museo del Prado and a key group of 14 of them provides the core of the exhibition, to which a further 26 paintings – most of them produced on private commission for Court members - has been added. This exceptional overview provides an appreciation of the various facets of Meléndez work and the variety of themes and formats he used.

The painter and his models

Among these is the Still Life with Oranges, Nuts, a Box of Sweetmeats and a Jug from the National Gallery in London, exhibited for the first time with its pair, the Still Life with Pears, Wine Cooler, Bottle and Basket, on loan from a private collection, or the artist’s most recent work to have entered a museum collection, the Still Life with Figs and Bread, acquired by the National Gallery of Washington. In addition to the paintings, the exhibition features a number of objects – vessels, storage jars, cooking pots, copper cauldrons or baskets – similar to those that Meléndez would have used as models. A further ocasion to appreciate his remarkable powers of observation, his skill at constructing compositions and his command of the effects of light, of expressive colour, firm line and an almost obsessive precision in the details.