PONCE, Antonio

This painting depicts a still-life with tulips, bearded iris, gladioli, marigolds, orange blossom, roses, apples, pears, and an artichoke in a maiolica vase.

The large dark vine leaves and fruit are back-lit and are sharply silhouetted against the luminous background, to quite dramatic effect. Ponce’s use of this effect strongly indicates the indirect influence of Caravaggio’s Basket of Fruit in the Pinacoteca Ambrosiana, Milan, almost 50 years after it was created.

In this painting Ponce depicts a copious bouquet of cut flowers in a two-handled vase of Talavera pottery that rests on a smooth stone ledge, laden with leafy branches of apples and pears, and some artichokes. The horizontal format and neutral, light ochre background tone gives a greater sense of atmospheric, ambient space than in other works by the artist, a sense that is, in turn, articulated by two butterflies that fly around the blooms.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 7 minutes):

Piotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker, ballet suite, op. 71, Waltz of the Flowers

Antonio Ponce was an apprentice and, probably, an assistant of Juan van der Hamen who enjoyed a long career at the court of Madrid as a specialist painter of still-lifes and flower pieces. This flower painting, and its pendant in the same private collection, representing glass vases of flowers standing on a stone ledge, follows the most conventional of formats for flower paintings. As flower paintings became important decorative features in the homes of the period, they were increasingly conceived as pendant paintings and, indeed, as decorative series of works. Moreover, the stone ledges on which the flowers rest enter the pictures from opposite sides, a feature that would have permitted their owner to hang them on either side of a central element, such as a window, a painting or piece of furniture, with the perspective of the ledges appearing to converge on a central point.

Ponce has meticulously studied the play of light on the petals of the flowers, carefully tracing their edges with thin strokes of white paint and applying highlights as a series of hatched brushstrokes in light paint. Personal factors probably explain the depth of Van der Hamen’s influence on Ponce’s flower paintings: the older artist was a pioneer in this genre in Madrid and had taught the younger artist to paint. Ponce’s faith in the aesthetic principles of Van der Hamen appear to be in direct contrast with the spirited touch exemplified in the works of his younger contemporaries, such as Juan de Arellano and Gabriel de la Corte.

Suggested listening (streaming mp3, 2 minutes):

Franz Schubert: Blumenlied (Flower Song) D 431

Antonio Ponce was an apprentice and, probably, an assistant of Juan van der Hamen who enjoyed a long career at the court of Madrid as a specialist painter of still-lifes and flower pieces. This flower painting, and its pendant in the same private collection, representing glass vases of flowers standing on a stone ledge, follows the most conventional of formats for flower paintings. As flower paintings became important decorative features in the homes of the period, they were increasingly conceived as pendant paintings and, indeed, as decorative series of works. Moreover, the stone ledges on which the flowers rest enter the pictures from opposite sides, a feature that would have permitted their owner to hang them on either side of a central element, such as a window, a painting or piece of furniture, with the perspective of the ledges appearing to converge on a central point.

Ponce has meticulously studied the play of light on the petals of the flowers, carefully tracing their edges with thin strokes of white paint and applying highlights as a series of hatched brushstrokes in light paint. Personal factors probably explain the depth of Van der Hamen’s influence on Ponce’s flower paintings: the older artist was a pioneer in this genre in Madrid and had taught the younger artist to paint. Ponce’s faith in the aesthetic principles of Van der Hamen appear to be in direct contrast with the spirited touch exemplified in the works of his younger contemporaries, such as Juan de Arellano and Gabriel de la Corte.