This picture was purchased by Banco de España in 1967 from the heirs of the pioneer in the study of the Spanish still life, Julio Cavestany, Marquis of Moret. Its companion piece, Still Life with Basket, Boxes and Jars of Sweetmeats, signed and dated in 1622, was similarly acquired by the Museo Nacional del Prado in 1999 (P7743). William Jordan assigned the Banco de España canvas the earlier date of c. 1621 on the basis of its style and the handling of the paint. The modelling of the forms in the picture is much less summary than in another version of the composition in a private collection, which is signed and dated in 1621, and he sees this as proof that it is the principal version. If it were so, it is possible that the picture remained in the artist’s studio for some years in order to serve as a prototype for new copies and versions. The motifs of the still life shown here and in its pair appear in other works by Van der Hamen, in accordance with his practice of producing replicas and variants of his compositions in response to market demand. Nevertheless, it would have been practically impossible for the artist’s unversed contemporaries to tell whether the paintings were direct representations from life or partially recycled on the basis of other autograph images, as there was really no perceptible loss to be appreciated in their apparent “naturalism”.

In Still Life of Fruits and Sweetmeats and Still Life with Basket, Boxes and Jars of Sweetmeats, the motifs are presented in generally symmetrical compositions within a fictitious window frame, a format invented for still life compositions by Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560-1627). These are very forceful pictorial compositions, as they are made up of relatively few objects in clear and attractive arrangements with the understanding of structure and plasticity of form habitual in the artist. Indeed, the formal character of the artist’s still lifes won him an enthusiastic contemporary public when his works were rediscovered at the beginning of the twentieth century. Van der Hamen isolates the life-size motifs inside the window frame and shows them with a strong light projected onto a dark background. A striking interaction is thus set up between the empty darkness of the upper part of the canvases and the insistent volumes of the foreground objects that emerge from it. Van der Hamen exploits the projection of the object over the front edge of the window ledge – the crystallised carrot and the bread roll on the canvas shown here, and the box of sweetmeats in its pair – to create the illusion of the continuity of the pictorial space in our own, thus strengthening the apparent “reality” of what is depicted.

Although the still lifes are presented in relatively sober and austere pictorial settings, the foodstuffs represented evoke the cheerful social occasions on which they were – and still are – consumed in Spain. As he worked in Madrid, Van der Hamen sought to attract the attention of urbane clients among the members of the court administration and the nobility by selecting motifs associated with a refined and cultivated lifestyle. The most evident result of this strategy to be observed here is the elaborate fruit bowl of blue glass incrusted in an ornamental stand of gilt silver. In fact, this became one of the artist’s characteristic motifs, repeated in many of his still lifes and moreover imitated by his competitors. The common or garden fruit – apples, plums, a lemon – is presented in the bowl as it might be arranged on a distinguished table, adorned with plum branches. Next to it are dishes with pedestals, full of sponge cakes and candied fruits. The most intriguing motifs of the composition are the three small lobulated fruits on the left, which look like tomatoes or red peppers. In either case, they are among the rare examples of American flora to appear in still life painting in Spain.

The ludic twinned arrangement of this picture with the Still Life with Basket, Boxes and Jars of Sweetmeats shows us the fruit in its natural state and as candied sweetmeats. The pair shows a basket laden with sponge cakes, a sugar rosquilla (a hard pastry), and crystallised oranges, plums, sweet potato and carrots, flanked by a jar of honey and wooden boxes of marzipan or quince jelly and a jar of preserves, the latter motifs also appearing in Still Life with Dog. The candied fruits were relatively expensive products in Madrid at that time (and still are today), and were associated with the tables of the wealthiest. Although the painter is said to have been annoyed by the way in which his still lifes of sweetmeats eclipsed his artistic reputation in the ostensibly “more elevated” genres of narrative painting and portraiture, he fed the demands of collectors with a large number of pictures and a wide range of themes. Indeed, still lifes of sweetmeats were one of the innovative authorial “brands” he developed for the market. It is possible that they were painted in response to imported pictures like those of Osias Beert I (c. 1530-1624), a painter from Antwerp. In the case of Van der Hamen, related to the Flemish community in Madrid, it comes as no surprise that he should have had extensive knowledge of northern European art. An unfinished still life of “bizcochos (sponge cakes) and chocolate”, recorded in Van der Hamen’s post mortem inventory, suggests that he was the first to paint still lifes with chocolate, which would later become a staple theme of the genre in Spain.

Despite Van der Hamen’s own uneasiness at his ambiguous contemporary artistic category in the humble genre of still life painting, his name remains associated with it. Today, more works of this type are known by his hand than by any other painter of his generation. They are still admired for their aesthetic qualities, and of all of them, the Still Life with Basket, Boxes and Jars of Sweetmeats remains one of the most outstanding.

Peter Cherry

Its lack of a signature and some apparent weakness in the technique led to the belief that it could be an atelier work, but there are aspects of sufficient quality in this canvas to consider this to be the work of the master. The two groups of sweets on the side fruit bowls are accomplished and, along with the highly ornate bronze fruit bowl, are identical in technique to those of other works signed and dated with great accuracy. That fruit bowl is nearly identical to the one in another still life, dated 1623, which was in the Ceballos Collection in Madrid and then went to the New York market. This painting could therefore be considered to be from that same period or, at least, very close in date. 

It is not uncommon to find repeated motifs in the work of Juan van der Hamen. He found success thanks to the beauty of some of his paintings and customers placing commissions often expressly asked for elements to be repeated.

The canvas belonged to the Marquis de Moret and was sold by his descendants to the Banco de España in 1967.

Alfonso Pérez Sánchez