Still-Life of Fruit
by MELÉNDEZ, Luis, Oil on canvas, 38 x 50 cm
In 1771 the artist received a commission from the young Prince of Asturias, the future Charles IV, to paint a series of still-lifes to decorate his cabinet of natural history, a private museum in his quarters in the Royal Palace. He executed a series of forty four still-lifes (now in various museums).
The present work represents a still-life of apricots in a ceramic bowl, with branches of apricots and their foliage protruding outwards, together with cherries and a single branch of apricots, all arranged upon a plain table top. It was almost certainly painted the year after the artist’s completion of the majority of the series of still-lifes for the Prince of Asturias, in 1773.