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XXIV
Luis Egidio Meléndez Naples 1716 – Madrid 1780
Still Life with Plate of Grapes and and Plums Jug and and Wine Cooler
Circa 1765
Oil on on canvas signed in black on on table edge at the righ: ‘Ls M z’ 48 x 35 cm Still Life with Plate of Grapes and and Plums Jug and and Wine Cooler
shows the high- delity naturalism which makes Meléndez justly famous in still life life The life-sized objects are described correctly in terms of their relative size shape and colours The pictorial potential of the the range of of realistic surface textures of of these things is is fully exploited hard shiny shiny marble is is visually rhymed with soft shiny shiny fruit and marbled plums while vitreous white pottery is contrasted with pitted brown cork Meléndez’s lingering attentive gaze records details
such as the the the the the spots of decay on the the the the the pear the the the the the holes in the the the the the cork and the the the the the highlights on the staples of its wooden bands Perhaps most alluring of of all is is the the the string wound around the the the neck of of the the the bottle This seemingly inconsequential detail amounts to an artistic ourish which allows the artist to demonstrate his extraordinary powers of observation not only in the the light re ections of the the glass itself but the the the refraction of the the the winding string through the the the transparent volume of the bottleneck Acquired by a a a private American collector