Footnotes

• PROVENANCE:
  The Collection of Dr. Kurt Benedict
  The Collection of Otto Wertheim, 1962
  Private Collection, Switzerland
  Private Collection, Madrid
  
  LITERATURE:
  P. Cherry, El Bodegón. An Exhibition. Spanish Still Life Painting from the 17th to the 19th Century, exh. cat., (London, 2003), cat. no. 13, as Pseudo-Hiepes)
  R. Romero, El bodegón español en el siglo XVII: desvelando su naturaleza oculta (Madrid, 2009), p. 392, fig. 9 (as Pseudo-Hiepes)
  W.B. Jordan, 'El Pseudo-Hiepes es Bernardo Polo', Archivo Español de Arte (Madrid, October-December 2009), LXXXII, p. 328, fig. 5
  
  EXHIBITED:
  London and Madrid, El Bodegón. An Exhibition. Spanish Still Life Painting from the 17th to the 19th Century (Rafael Valls Gallery, 1-19 December 2003; and Galeria Caylus, 19 December-13 February 2004, no. 13, as Pseudo Hiepes)
  
  The present painting was, until recently, given to a corpus of works by an unknown artist refered to as the 'Pseudo-Hiepes'. However, following the discovery of a signed composition, William Jordan was able to indentify the artist as Bernardo Polo (see: 'El Pseudo-Hiepes es Bernardo Polo' Archivo Español de Arte, LXXXII, no. 328, October-December 2009, pp. 395-403).
  
  Jordan observes that the major part of Polo's oeuvre is comprised of three compositional types. The present painting belongs to the second group of still lifes that are mostly composed of symmetrically-arranged objects atop a stone slab cut with leaves (compare, for example, a Still Life with a Vase of Flowers, a Fruit Bowl and a Wine Cooler, Private Collection, Barcelona, op. cit. p. 397, fig. 4). In all of these works each of the individual elements is arranged so that it is viewed from the front and are further characterised by the artist's lighting of the subject from the upper left: a typical device employed in order to divide diagonally the composition into two halves.