LEDESMA, Blas de

Spanish painter. He is known to have worked in Granada from 1602, and in 1614 he designed a stucco vault decoration for the Alhambra. Archival sources testify to his renown as a painter of decorative fresco grotesques (untraced) and still-lifes. His activity as a still-life painter remains debatable, partly because he has been confused with Blas de Prado. Ledesma’s only unanimously accepted autograph painting is Basket of Cherries and Flowers (High Museum of Art, Atlanta), signed in Granada. A highly decorative painting, it shows none of the sophistication of still-lifes by Juan Sánchez Cotán, in Granada from 1603. Two other unsigned and poorly preserved still-lifes of analogous subject-matter have been attributed to Ledesma (private collection). Three very different signed still-lifes depicting sweets, fruits and exotic birds have also been tentatively accepted as autograph (private collections).