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Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Juan van der Hamen y León

Still Life with Porcelain and Sweets

ca. 1627
Oil on canvas.
77.4 x 100.6 cm
Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid
Inv. no.
180
(
1935.9
)
ROOM 21
Level 2
Permanent Collection
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 14 13 15 16 17 18 22 19 20 21 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 Recommended start of the visitClassical rooms
1 14th Century. Early Italian Painting 2 15th Century. German and Spanish Painting 3 15th Century. Early Netherlandish Painting 4 15th Century. Italian Painting 5 15th and 16th Centuries. Renaissance Portraiture 6 16th Century. Villahermosa Gallery 7 16th Century. Italian Painting 8 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 9 15th and 16th Centuries. German Painting 10 16th Century. Netherlandish Painting 11 Tiziano, Tintoretto, Bassano and  El Greco 12 17th Century. Caravaggio and Baroque Painting 13 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 14 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 15 17th Century. Italian, French and Spanish Painting 16 18th Century. Italian Painting 17 18th Century. Italian Painting 18 18th Century. Italian Painting 19 Classical rooms 20 Classical rooms 21 Classical rooms 22 18th Century. Italian Painting 23 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 24 18th Century. French and English Painting 25 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Scenes of Daily Life and Interiors 26 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 27 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Portrait 28 17th Century. Dutch Painting. Landscape 29 19th Century. European Painting. Goya and Romanticism  

Juan van der Hamen was a member of the royal Guard of Archers in addition to his activities as a painter. Little is known of his training, which probably took place in Madrid.With regard to still life, the genre in which he was particularly admired and known, he was also influenced by the work of the Toledan artist Sánchez Cotán and by innovations arriving from northern Europe. Van der Hamen received his first official commission in 1619 to execute a still life with game for Philip III for the decoration of the Palacio del Pardo. In addition to his highly distinctive still lifes, Van der Hamen also produced history paintings and portraits of which a good example is the Portrait of a Dwarf in the Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid. His work was highly esteemed by the leading collectors of his day, and the artist was obliged to open a workshop involving the collaboration of pupils and assistants, a fact that explains the uneven quality of his work.

The present still life entered the Thyssen-Bornemisza collection in 1935 from the De Frey collection in Paris. The first two catalogues of the Collection published it as a work by Francisco de Zurbarán, an opinion shared by Mayer who wrote an authenticity report on the canvas in 1930, five years after its acquisition. In 1958 César Pemán published the painting with a tentative attribution to Juan de Zurbarán, son of the celebrated painter, while in 1969 Rudolph Heinemann finally gave the work to Juan van der Hamen y León, repeating the opinion expressed by Charles Sterling who had compared the canvas to the artist’s Still Life with Sweetmeats and ceramic Vessels in the National Gallery of Art, Washington, signed and dated 1627.

In the present composition, Van der Hamen abandons his use of the “Venetian window” and arranges all the objects on the same level, aligned on a plain surface in which the light strongly creates and defines the forms and volumes. The objects chosen are simple ceramic, glass and wooden vessels and containers, arranged in two asymmetrical groups that are separated in the centre by a small heaped pile of sweetmeats and biscuits. The simple, austere mood of the composition is achieved not just by the arrangement of the chosen objects but also by the sense of empty space and air around them.Van der Hamen creates his image from simple diagonals along which the objects are arranged and which are emphasised by colour, principally a luminous white and an intense red. The artist was careful in his choice of objects, which include Venetian glass, terracotta from Tonalá in the province of Guadalajara, New Spain, and of the sweetmeats and biscuits that are sprinkled with sugar. These sweetmeats constitute one of the most distinctive and appealing elements in his still life paintings.

Mar Borobia

17th Centurys. XVII - Pintura españolaPaintingOilcanvas
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Still Life with Fruit Pie and various Objects. Bodegón con pastel de frutas y diversos objetos, 1634
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Still Life with Porcelain and Sweets. Bodegón con loza y dulces, c. 1627
Still Life with Porcelain and Sweets
Juan van der Hamen y León

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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Still Life with Porcelain and Sweets. Bodegón con loza y dulces, c. 1627
Still Life with Porcelain and Sweets
Juan van der Hamen y León

©

Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Madrid

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