Tomás Hiepes

With Ettore Viancini, Venice;

With C. Roelofsz, Amsterdam, 1992;

With Harari & Johns Ltd., London;

From whom acquired by Hans and Marion König, 1995.

A. Pérez Sánchez (ed.), Thomas Yepes, exhibition catalogue, Valencia 1995, p. 118, reproduced in color (under "Works known to be by Yepes, unable to be exhibited on this occasion").

This crisply painted still life is among the most unique in the oeuvre of Hiepes, the dominant figure in the development of still life painting in Valencia in the seventeenth century. The inclusion of wild strawberries as the principal subject are somewhat surprising, according to Pérez Sánchez, as they do not appear in other canvases by the artist. Furthermore, the minutely drawn technique in which the berries have been rendered stands apart relative to Hiepes’ more typical open brushwork. Pérez Sánchez posited, largely based on this painting, that the artist must have been aware of Northern European still life’s. Indeed, the vessel, made of blue and white ceramic, and decorated with birds and branches in blue, seems to be of Asian origin (or perhaps Delft) which were often included in Dutch still lifes. This example is very similar in its decoration to one of the flowerpots Hiepes used in his ambitious canvas today in the Menil Collection, Houston.¹

In October 1616, Tomás Hiepes was admitted to the Colegio de Pintores in Valencia, and although we have little information about his life, his paintings deeply affected the work of other artists in and around Valencia. Writing in 1656, the local chronicler Marco Antonio Orti described him as "..the painter who in this line of the imitation of fruits has succeeded in acquiring a very singular fame and reputation", while in his Vida de los pintores, arquitectos, escueltores y grabadores valencianos, Marcos Antonio de Orellana (1731-1813) wrote: "His flowers are subtle, translucent and light, his fruits very natural and everything done with admirable perfection. His paintings are equally copious as they are esteemed and celebrated, and one does not see baskets with fruit, flowers etc....and other similar things which are well executed in conformity with the real things, without thinking and esteeming them to be works by Yepes". 

¹ A. Pérez Sánchez 1995, cat. no. 31.