Juan de Espinosa

Little is known of the rare and talented still life painter Juan de Espinosa, though it is generally thought that he was active in Madrid in the mid-seventeenth century, alongside artists such as Juan van der Hamen and Antonio Ponce. Espinosa has sometimes been confused with the painter Juan Bautista de Espinosa (c. 1585-1640), who was mostly a painter of altarpieces; Juan Bautista de Espinosa's signed and dated still life of 1624 was the likely source of this confusion.¹ Juan de Espinosa's oeuvre, however, should be considered separately and has been traditionally based on two still lifes now in the Museo del Prado, the first depicting bunches of grapes, apples, and a ceramic vase on a ledge;² the second, smaller panel depicting a bunch of grapes with a dead finch on a ledge.³ A painting in the Louvre, which includes many of these elements as well as a red vase similar to that in the present work, was the first signed painting by the artist to be discovered when it was given to the museum in 1973.⁴ These still lifes are generally dated to the 1630s, though some scholars have suggested the possibility of later dates as well. In the catalogue for the 1998 sale (see Provenance), the attribution of the present painting was confirmed by Bill Jordan.

The fanciful red earthenware vase in the Marion painting is most certainly from Tonalá, Mexico. These remarkable vases were imported into Europe in the early seventeenth century, particularly to Spain, and elaborate examples were incorporated into still lifes by artists including Antonio Pereda, Juan van der Hamen, and Antonio Ponce as well. 

1. Now in the Hilmar Reksten Foundation, Bergen, Norway. See W. B. Jordan, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age, exhibition catalogue, Fort Worth 1985, cat. no. 9, reproduced p. 93. 

2. See https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/still-life-with-grapes-apples-and-plums/cf3b3737-df34-4c94-b221-146dad27c34e

3. See https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/still-life-with-dead-bird/8df7694f-5f23-41a1-a014-b4ca30f78575 

4. The signature has been effaced and unfortunately the date is unreadable, though it is likely that this is the same work which was sold by the Pereire Collection in Paris in 1868 as signed and dated 1645.  See Jordan 1985, pp. 169-70, and https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010066164