Luis Meléndez (Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Bream, Oranges, Garlic, Condiments, and Kitchen Utensils, 1772, Oil on canvas, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Luis Meléndez ((Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Bread, Ham, Cheese, and Vegetables, about 1772, Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Margaret Curry Wyman Fund, 39.40, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Luis Meléndez (Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Artichokes and Peas in a Landscape, about 1771-1774, Oil on canvas, Private Collection.Photo Private Collection.

Luis Meléndez (Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Watermelons and Apples in a Landscape, 1771, Oil on canvas, Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, © Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid.

Luis Meléndez (Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Melon and Pears, about 1772, Oil on canvas, Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. Margaret Curry Wyman Fund, Photograph © Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

Luis Meléndez (Spanish, 1716-1780), Self-Portrait, 1746, Oil on canvas, Musée du Louvre, Paris, Réunion des Musées Nationaux/Art Resource, NY.

Luis Meléndez (Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Bread, Grapes, Jug, and Receptacles, about 1770, Oil on canvas, Collection of Teresa Heinz.

Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Avenue of the Arts
465 Huntington Avenue
617-267-9300
Boston
Lois and Michael Torf Gallery
Luis Meléndez: Master
of the Spanish Still Life
February 2-May 9, 2010

Luis Egidio Meléndez, Spain’s great still life painter, created more than 100 depictions of Spain’s abundant foods during his lifetime. His paintings from museums and private collections across the United States are juxtaposed with foreign loans to highlight similar themes or compositions in the exhibition. Meléndez’s naturalistic still lifes celebrate the bounty of Spain’s harvest — luscious fruits and vegetables, wine, olive oil, and vinegar. Bread, cheese, fish, fowl, and meats are also featured in his works, which often highlight foods for a particular meal or associated with a specific season. Carefully arranged with kitchenware, the compositions highlight foods displayed on wooden tables against a dark background, or showcased inventively in dramatic landscapes. Meléndez’s gift for observation enabled him to describe the imperfections of over-ripe fruit, the transparency of glass, and the reflections on silver. With exacting detail, he orchestrated color and illumination, spatial relationships, and proportion and perspective for his compelling still lifes, two of which are from the MFA’s collection, Still Life with Bread, Ham, Cheese, and Vegetables (c. 1772) and Still Life with Melon and Pears (c. 1772).

The still life paintings of Luis Meléndez (1715-80), 18th-century Spain’s greatest master of the genre, offer a feast for the eyes in the first American exhibition in 25 years dedicated to the artist. Luis Meléndez: Master of the Spanish Still Life showcases 30 works drawn from American public and private collections, including the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC, and the MFA, together with foreign loans from the Museo Nacional del Prado, among others. Luis Meléndez was organized by the National Gallery of Art, Washington.

"We are excited by the opportunity to introduce our public to the beautiful works of Luis Meléndez. This exhibition will provide a rare opportunity to see two masterpieces from the MFA’s own collection within the broader context of the artist’s production. We are grateful to the museums and private collectors who have graciously agreed to share their paintings with us," said Malcolm Rogers, Ann and Graham Gund Director of the MFA.

Meléndez was born in Naples, Italy, into a family of artists. He began his studies with his father, Francisco Antonio Meléndez, an accomplished painter of miniatures. The young Meléndez later worked in the Madrid studio of Louis-Michel van Loo, French royal portraitist to the Spanish court, where he learned portraiture. In 1744, Meléndez enrolled at the fledgling Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, an institution his father had recently helped to establish. The 31-year-old artist excelled as a student and a promising future seemed assured. His confidence is reflected in his Self-Portrait (Musée du Louvre, 1746), one of the most engaging self portraits of the 18th century, which captures Meléndez’s elegant hauteur in his swaggered stance and flaunts his talent as a draftsman in the figurative drawing he holds. But because of disagreements between the temperamental elder Meléndez and the institution’s administrators, both father and son were expelled from the Academy in 1748. The following year, the young Meléndez traveled to Italy to continue his education and explore possible patronage opportunities. In Rome, he painted devotional images and portraits until he was called back to Madrid in 1753 by his father to assist with a major choir-book commission for King Ferdinand VI — a five-year endeavor.

Although Meléndez petitioned unsuccessfully on numerous occasions to become a royal painter, his miniatures, and the still lifes he began to create around 1759, were well regarded in important circles. In 1771, the 56-year-old artist was summoned to court by Princess Maria Luisa who, with her husband, Charles III, Prince of Asturias (later King Charles IV), commissioned the artist to create a series of still life paintings for the prince’s New Cabinet of Natural History. The artist delivered 44 still lifes, which, in his words, depict "the four Seasons of the Year...with the aim of composing an amusing cabinet with every species of food produced by the Spanish climate" before the commission was cancelled abruptly in late 1776.

The royal commission, which marked the pinnacle of Meléndez’s career, included works the artist painted from 1759 through 1774. Nine from the series, borrowed from Madrid (where the Prado has the largest collection of Meléndez paintings) and Valladolid, are featured in Luis Meléndez, including Still Life with Box of Jellied Fruit, Bread, Silver Salver, Glass, and Wine Cooler (1770), Still Life with Watermelons and Apples in a Landscape (1771), Still Life with Bream, Oranges, Garlic, Condiments, and Kitchen Utensils (1772), and Still Life with Chocolate Service, Bread Roll, and Biscuits (1770).

"The paintings in this exhibition illustrate Meléndez’s uncanny talent for describing textures, from earthenware to copper to glass, and from the pitted skin of oranges to the bursting ripeness of pomegranates," said Ronni Baer, the William and Ann Elfers Senior Curator of Paintings, Art of Europe, at the MFA, who is the Boston curator for the exhibition. "We learn that his compositional solutions, in which he arranged and rearranged objects and foodstuffs, were the result of almost obsessive tinkering with the selection and placement of forms in various formats."

Everyday objects that could have been found in many 18-century Spanish kitchens, both humble and grand, are featured in Meléndez’s compositions and are also included in the exhibition. The artist repeatedly depicted stock objects, such as a ceramic cooking pot, a brass mortar and pestle, and a cork wine cooler, in his many still life arrangements, even carefully recreating their scratches, chips, and dents. Luis Meléndez also explores the artist’s creative process by looking at his working methods and materials. Technical studies conducted on the still lifes indicate that Meléndez made many changes before completing a painting to his satisfaction, sometimes altering the placement or types of objects. X-rays indicate that he sometimes reused his canvases. This is the case with Still Life with Beef, Bowl of Ham and Vegetables, and Receptacles (Private Collection, c. 1772), whose painted surface obscures a portrait of King Ferdinand VI. It is one of five paintings paired with a corresponding x-ray image in the exhibition.

Although Meléndez enjoyed modest success with other patrons while undertaking the royal series of still lifes, he was unable to achieve the prestige associated with the lofty genre of history painting. The artist died as a pauper in 1780 and slipped into obscurity, but a newfound appreciation of his brilliance by scholars and collectors in recent years has finally brought Meléndez the recognition that long eluded him in his lifetime.

Luis Meléndez: Master of the Spanish Still Life was organized at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, by Gretchen A. Hirschauer, associate curator of Italian and Spanish paintings, and Catherine A. Metzger, senior conservator. A fully illustrated exhibition catalogue accompanies the exhibition. Published by the Yale University Press, it is available in the MFA Bookstore and Shop in hard cover for $60 and in soft cover for $40.

Luis Meléndez ((Spanish, 1716-1780), Still Life with Pears, Grapes, Peaches, and Receptacles, about 1772, Oil on canvas, Private Collection, Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.