Allegory of Avarice, Flemish school, 17th century, signed with monogram. Oil on canvas. Framed dimensions: 93 x 81 cm, canvas dimensions: 69 x 57 cm
Four reliefs of the four Evangelists, Hispano-Flemish school, 17th century. In oak. With later inscriptions on the base of each relief. Each measures 77 x 40 x 2 cm.
Dutch Pantry, oil on panel, 17th-century Dutch school. Signed in the lower center corner, oil on oak panel. Dimensions: 79 x 60 cm, framed dimensions: 125 x 106 cm. Possibly by Pieter Symonsz Potter (Netherlands, 1597–1652). “In the Stable.” Oil on panel. With the inscription “Eschayen” in the lower left corner. Dimensions: 60 x 78 cm; 106 x 124.5 cm (framed). This panel depicts an everyday scene of the period, featuring a maidservant busy with her work inside a large stable with wooden walls and ceiling. Beside her, almost as if it were a still life, we see all kinds of objects and foodstuffs: meats, vegetables, dead birds, and all sorts of containers, combined with the presence of live animals (a cat and two poultry). The scene is completed by the presence of a cow on the right, behind the figure of the woman bending over to pour milk into a large tub. This combination of genre painting, with its inconsequential and everyday subject matter, and the prominent presence of food and other objects typical of still-life painting, was common within the Dutch Baroque school, in the context of the formation and independence of new pictorial genres. A painter of the Flemish Golden Age, Potter was the town clerk of his native city of Enkhuizen, according to Arnold Houbraken (1660-1719), a Flemish painter and writer who continued the biographies of painters begun by Karen van Mander in the 16th century. He married Aechtje Bartsius, sister of the painter Willem Bartsius (c. 1612-1639), and was the father of the painter Pieter Potter II. He began his training as a glass painter, though in 1628 he abandoned this career and moved to Leiden to learn oil painting techniques. He remained in Leiden for three years, until 1631, when he moved to Amsterdam, where he lived and worked for the rest of his life, except for a two-year stay in The Hague between 1647 and 1649. Primarily known for his genre scenes and rural landscapes, Potter joined the Guild of Saint Luke in 1646 and the Confrerie Picturia of The Hague in 1647. The latter was a less academic association than the Guild of Saint Luke, and in some ways reactionary to it. Besides his more familiar subjects, this painter also produced portraits, scenes from the Old and New Testaments, classical mythology, and literary subjects, some of which were conceived as models for engravings. Still lifes also constitute a significant part of his output. Within his genre paintings, we can distinguish several themes: cheerful groups of ordinary people, scenes of peasant life and folk subjects, as well as military motifs (army encampments, skirmishes, and interior scenes featuring soldiers—the latter a true novelty for the time). Currently, Pieter Symonsz Potter is represented in the Louvre Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Museum in Warsaw, the Museum of Fine Arts in Budapest, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Mauritshuis in The Hague, the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Copenhagen, Wawel Castle in Krakow, the Museum of Fine Arts in Poitiers, the National Gallery of Norway, and the Royal Museums of Fine Arts in Brussels, among other important public and private collections.
Pair of oil paintings on canvas. Dimensions: 145 x 92 cm (framed) and 149 x 123 cm (canvases). Provenance: important private collection, Spain. This is an exceptional 17th-century canvas depicting the allegory of summer, following the typical style of still lifes popularized by Blas de Ledesma. Blas de Ledesma, the first Spanish painter documented in Granada between 1602 and 1614, is considered one of the first artists in Spain to cultivate still life painting and one of its greatest exponents. With only one signed work, a veil of mystery surrounds him, placing him, along with Pedro de Raxis, as the possible author of the dome crowning the imperial staircase of the Monastery of Santa Cruz la Real in Granada. In 1606, he is documented in Andújar (Jaén), working on the painting of one of the vaults in the Church of Santa María. It is this status as a mural painter to which Francisco Pacheco refers, mentioning him favorably in his work, *Arte de la Pintura*, when discussing the technique of gilding, alongside Pedro de Raxis and Antonio Mohedano. In 1614, back in Granada, he drew a plaster vault for the Hall of the Muqarnas in the Alhambra and is mentioned in the cathedral, with unspecified work, alongside Miguel Cano, father of Alonso Cano. His death is documented in late 1615 or early 1616, since the Brotherhood of Corpus Christi, to which he belonged, celebrated a requiem mass for his soul on January 5, 1616. His only signed and documented work is the Still Life in the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia. In it, a wicker basket filled with cherries stands in the center, with a few flowers symmetrically arranged on either side. Even the cherries that have fallen onto the tablecloth appear carefully arranged, and everything is painted with meticulous and precise technique. Ledesma may have been inspired by the work of Juan Sánchez Cotán, who lived in Granada from 1604. Reference bibliography: Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso E. (1983). Spanish Still Life Paintings and Flower Vases from 1600 to Goya. Madrid, Ministry of Culture, exhibition catalog. Pp. 70-71. ISBN 84-500-9335-X. Attributed to LEDESMA, Blas de (documented in Granada between 1602 and 1614). “Still Lifes with Fruit, Birds and Flower Vases”. Pair of oil paintings on canvas. CERTIFIED BY THE AMAYER INSTITUTE. Dimensions: 145 x 92 cm; 169.5 x 116 cm (frame). Still lifes very similar to those presented here can be seen in the book “Blas de Ledesma and the Spanish Still Life,” by Ramón Torres Martín (self-published, 1978). In this pair of still lifes, a similar composition is evident, with a flat, neutral-toned surface running parallel to the lower edge of the painting, a black background against which the objects stand out, vividly illuminated by a tenebrist light, and a draped red cloth on one side, closing the composition. On the table are various fruits of different sizes, arranged in apparent disorder but following a carefully considered scheme, determined by horizontal lines softened by the vertical lines of the bronze vases and some diagonals, which introduce a slight movement into the composition. Next to the fruits, we see the aforementioned ornamental vases, in the late Mannerist style, decorated with grotesque heads in relief and crowned with circular bouquets of flowers. Other objects also appear: a typically Baroque ornamental tray in the first painting, and in the second, a glass flask and an unadorned metal platter. Both paintings also feature birds at rest: a dove and an exotic bird, similar to a parrot, possibly copied from an engraving brought from overseas. First and foremost, the importance of the lighting, typical of the naturalistic Baroque, is noteworthy: a focused, directed light source, its origin outside the frame, entering the image from the upper left corner and illuminating the main objects, leaving the rest in shadow. The color palette is also directly related to the naturalistic Baroque: it revolves around warm colors, primarily earthy tones, ochre
