Blas de Ledesma (documented 1602-1614)
THE PROPERTY OF A NOBLEMAN
Blas de Ledesma (documented 1602-1614)

Details
Blas de Ledesma (documented 1602-1614)

A Basket of Apricots with Oranges on a Ledge covered with a Cloth, Pinks growing behind

23 5/8 x 31 5/8in. (60 x 80.5cm.)
Provenance
Cárabe Collection, Madrid.
Sra. Vda. de Contreras, Seville.
Literature
R. Torres Martín, La naturaleza muerta en la pintura española, Barcelona, 1971, colour pl. 13
R. Torres Martín, Blas de Ledesma y el origen del Bodegonismo español, Goya, 118, 1974, p. 223, note 14
R. Torres Martín, Los bodegones de Blas de Ledesma, Seville, 1976, no. 48
R. Torres Martín, Blas de Ledesma y el Bodegón Español, Madrid, 1978, p. 120, no. 102, illustrated p. 210 and colour pl. 25 on p. 85
W.B. Jordan, catalogue of the exhibition, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age 1600-1650, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, and Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio, 1985, p. 69, fig. II.5
A.E. Pérez Sánchez, La Nature Morte espagnole du XVIIe siècle à Goya, Fribourg and Paris, 1987, pp. 86-7, pl. 73
Exhibited
Madrid, Museo del Prado, Pintura española de bodegones y floreros de 1600 a Goya, Nov. 1983-Jan. 1984, p. 83, no. 54, illustrated

Lot Essay

Torres Martín, having initially published the present picture and its pendant, lot 70, as by Pedro de Medina (loc. cit., 1971), subsequently identified them as the work of Blas de Ledesma, the painter from Granada who is one of the earliest definable personalities of Spanish still-life painting. This attribution has met with general acceptance, Pérez Sánchez pointing out (in the catalogue of the 1983-84 exhibition) that these paintings are 'quizás los únicos que pueden considerarse con cierta seguridad come obra de Blas de Ledesma... entre los muchos que le han sido atribuídos en los últimos años', on account of their striking similarity to the Still-Life with a Basket of Cherries in the High Museum of Art, Atlanta (for which see, for instance, Jordan, op. cit., p. 69, no. 6, colour plate 6, or Pérez Sánchez, op. cit., 1987, p. 85, pl. 72, colour); that picture was until recently the only known signed work by Ledesma and 'is still our touchstone for knowledge of the artist' (Jordan, op. cit., p. 66).

Another picture also formerly in the Cárabe and Contreras Collections and almost certainly from the same series was sold at Christie's, New York, 18 May 1994, lot 49A

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