Fruit Bowl with Plates of Grapes and Pears, glass and clay Vessels

The elements in this still life are comparable to those found in works by Juan van der Hamen (Madrid, 1596-1631), the principal painter of fruit, flowers and sweetmeats at the Spanish court during the first decade of the reign of Philip IV, as well as a painter of religious compositions and portraits. However, none of the objects is identical to those seen in known works by this artist of Flemish origin who was a member of the Archers’ company. Other works by Van der Hamen do include red clay vessels, ornate wine glasses, piled-up boxes of sweetmeats, ceramic plates with decorated borders of different shapes and decoration but none has the ornate bottle, possibly of Oriental inspiration, seen here.
The structure of the composition is based on the window-type opening that derives from Sánchez Cotán and which was also deployed by Van der Hamen. The arrangement of the two plates of fruit in the foreground is frequently found in the latter’s compositions, while in his early period he generally aimed at an axial symmetry that is here achieved through the boxes of sweetmeats. Van der Hamen, however, did not usually locate so many objects in the pictorial space, the textures and size of which break the symmetry and make the composition more complex.
Peter Cherry noted that the two still lifes in the Colección Santander form a pair. He suggested that one was after Cotán and the other after Van der Hamen and that they were painted by a Flemish artist in Madrid associated with Van der Hamen. For the present author this artist may be Isaac Guillermo, a fellow member of the Archers’ company who may also have painted the pair of still lifes of the same dimensions in the Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (Madrid), one of which includes a similar glass as well as the use of the window frame.