Follower of Juan van der Hamen y Léon

A.E. Pérez Sánchez, in the catalogue of the 1983-84 exhibition, while stressing the 'notable quality' of the present picture, rejects the earlier identification of the artist as Blas de Ledesma and points out that the figs and the peaches recur, the former with a bowl rather than a basket, the latter in a slightly different arrangement, in another picture also erroneously attributed to that painter (R. Torres Martín, Blas de Ledesma y el Bodegón Espanol, Madrid, 1978, p. 116, no. 85, illustrated p. 196, p. 56, fig. 19 (colour) and pp. 80-2, colour pls. 20-22). Professor Jordan, loc. cit., develops this observation further, identifying 'a sizeable number of paintings representing fruit and birds', all attributed by Torres Martín to Blas de Ledesma and on the art market in Barcelona or Madrid in the late 1960s and in the 1970s, as the work of a 'single recognizable hand, quite superior to that of Ledesma'. He points out that many of these 'charming, somewhat provincial paintings' have a Mallorcan provenance, information that might be helpful in tracking the painter