Mallorcan school from the last third of the 17th century. Following models of JUAN DE ARELLANO (Santorcaz, Madrid, 1614 - Madrid, 1676). "Flower vase"

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OLD MASTERS - Day 1

By Setdart Auction House

May 31, 2021

Set Reminder 2021-05-31 08:30:00 2021-05-31 08:30:00 America/New_York Bidsquare Bidsquare : OLD MASTERS - Day 1 https://www.bidsquare.com/auctions/setdart-auction-house/old-masters---day-1-6998
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• Lot Description
  Mallorcan school from the last third of the 17th century. Following models of JUAN DE ARELLANO (Santorcaz, Madrid, 1614 - Madrid, 1676). "Flower vase". Oil on canvas. Reinforced with bands. 17th century frame. Measurements: 68 x 58 cm; 78 x 68 cm (frame). The artist of the present canvas offers us a masterly still life of flowers directly influenced by the painting of Juan de Arellano. The anonymous painter thus dissociates himself from the rest of Mallorcan artists who, from the seventeenth century onwards, chose to follow the models of Tomas de Hiepes. Thus, we are faced with a work that maintains the taste for naturalism that leads the painter to meticulously describe the details of the elements and to transmit their qualities, creating a fully baroque composition that continues the models established by Juan de Arellano and later by his son José. The luminous aspect, on the other hand, is key in this work, and reveals the direct influence of the tenebrist baroque, which reached these still life painters through the work of Maíno. While during the first half of the century the still life is orderly and clear, with a classicist aesthetic, the works of the second half of the century present very different characteristics, the result of the stylistic evolution towards the full baroque, leaving behind the dominant classicism of the beginning of the century. In works such as the vase we present here, the taste for extreme naturalism is maintained, which leads the author to meticulously describe not only the details of the flowers and vases, but also to convey their different tactile qualities. In this case it is a dynamic composition in terms of the arrangement of the flowers. Despite this, it is a composition centered and dominated by geometry, not yet the open and dynamic structures, full of diagonals, of the full baroque. However, the arrangement of the flowers has already lost the strict rigor and austerity of the naturalistic baroque. The Mallorcan school of still lifes shows a strong influence of the Valencian school, although it had its own personality and must have enjoyed a certain importance, given the number of works that have survived to the present day. It developed mainly from the late seventeenth century and during the eighteenth century, from the appearance of the figure of Guillermo Mesquida (1625-1747), which will raise the level of Mallorcan painting. He was the most famous painter of the Balearic Baroque and absolute dominator of the artistic panorama between the end of the XVII and the first half of the XVIII. He was an excellent painter of still lifes, although we do not preserve today not a single one of them that we can attribute to him with absolute certainty. His biographers indicate that he was a disciple in Rome of the Italian Carlos Marata, a painter who had great influence in the development of still life, since he collaborated with numerous specialists of this genre. Mesquida represented in his works fruits, animals and flowers, and founded in Mallorca a workshop in which numerous works would be made, some of which are still preserved today. His style would have been characterized by a great chromatic richness and a clear ostentatiousness and abundance of fruit and floral elements, traits that his followers of the Majorcan school would inherit, as can be seen in this canvas. Thanks to Mesquida's influence, the Mallorcan still life painters picked up Italian elements, especially Neapolitan and Roman, always combined with the influence of the Valencian school.
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