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Lot 205
  • 205

Juan van der Hamen y León (Workshop ?)

Estimate
100,000 - 150,000 USD
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Description

  • Juan van der Hamen y León (Workshop ?)
  • Table-top with Basket and Boxes of Sweets
  • signed and dated lower left: Juº Banderamen/de leon faaño 1620
  • oil on canvas

Provenance

With Colnaghi Gallery, New York.

Literature

W. Jordan, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age 1600-1650, exhibition catalogue, Fort Worth 1985, p. 137, reproduced, fig. VI.23 (as Juan van der Hamen [workshop]);
W. Jordan, Juan van der Hamen y León and the Court of Madrid, exhibition catalogue, Madrid 2005, p. 86, reproduced in color, fig. 6.10 (as Van der Hamen [workshop?]).

Condition

The following condition report has been provided by Simon Parkes of Simon Parkes Art Conservation, Inc. 502 East 74th St. New York, NY 212-734-3920, simonparkes@msn.com , an independent restorer who is not an employee of Sotheby's. This painting has fairly recently been cleaned. The frame needs some restoration and the varnish on the picture is quite dull. The varnish could be freshened and the retouching could be extended slightly to diminish some thinness which is still apparent, particularly in the basket, which will bring the picture to a more complete finish. The canvas has been lined fairly recently with glue. The paint layer is stable. The retouches which have been applied are visible under ultraviolet light in small isolated spots, mainly in the background addressing thinness in the dark colors and beneath the table in the foreground. The still life itself is conspicuously un-restored. If this picture were to be retouched to address some of the thinness detailed above in the basket and elsewhere, it would make a great improvement visually without interfering with the general perception that the picture is in excellent condition.
"This lot is offered for sale subject to Sotheby's Conditions of Business, which are available on request and printed in Sotheby's sale catalogues. The independent reports contained in this document are provided for prospective bidders' information only and without warranty by Sotheby's or the Seller."

Catalogue Note

The present work is perhaps the earliest dated example of Juan van der Hamen y León's symmetrical still-life compositions, a type of work long recognized as a hallmark of the artist's oeuvre. From circa 1620, van der Hamen created a number of still-lifes which featured wicker baskets stuffed with breads and sweets, flanked on both sides with stacked boxes and jars of fruit. While a number of variations on this common theme exist, the finest of the group may be recognized as the composition from 1622, Basket, Boxes, and Jars of Sweets (Museo Nacional del Pra♋do, Madrid, inv. no. 7743). These austere compositions owe much to the art of Juan Sánchez Cotán, whose simple and balanced compositions would have been well known to van der Hamen by 1618, when Cotán's pictures were already in the Spanish Royal Collection.  

This variant of Van der Hamen's still life of a basket and boxes of sweets – with the inclusion of silverware, a terracotta bottle, and confectioner's bar – is more cluttered than the Prado composition. When first published in the catalogue of the exhibition Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age: 1600-1650, this painting was listed by William Jordan as a picture executed by a member van der Hamen's workshop.1 Since that time, other variants have been discovered. When Jordan next took up the topic in print, twenty years later, he discussed the picture in relation to all the other known variants, which vary considerably in quality. While he considers the signature and date to be characteristic and of the artisꦫt at this period, he finds that the painting lacks the spontaneity of touch that characterizes securely attributed works, most notably the Prado picture.

The importance of this early composition is illustrated by the existence of another version of it, a painting in the Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid (inv. no. 1174). That picture, which is not exhibited at the museum, has been so compromised by modern repainting, that accurate comparison of the two is impossible. However, Jordan has suggested that the Madrid picture might in fact be the original, with the present work being a signed and dated second version from the workshop.2

1.  see literature, Jordan 1985, p. 137.
2.  private correspondence, March 11, 2009.