Luis Meléndez, follower of

Spanish, 18th century

Still Life with Fruit, c. 1750

oil on canvas

46.4 x 62.9 cm

Collection of the Winnipeg Art Gallery

G-61-14

Categories:

Painting, International Art

This still life of fruit and nuts, which includes green and red apples, peaches, plums, and a pear, is painted in the style of Luis Meléndez, who was considered the leading Spanish still-life painter in the eighteenth century. Like Meléndez, this artist has created a tiered still-life arrangement, placing the fruit on a stone step or ledge, set before a landscape. Great care is given to the colouring and lighting of the fruit and foliage, as well as in the depiction of their current state of ripeness or decay. The rough modelling of the immediate backdrop and landscape suggests that this portion of the painting was left unfinished. It was common with still-life paintings of this period, when a landscape setting was incorporated, that the landscape would have been painted by another artist trained in the genre.