Pears, pomegranates and grapes in a basket and other fruit on a stone ledge

At a time when flowers made few appearances in the still lifes of Spain, Antonio Ponce fuelled the genre of the floral still life with a distinctive style of dry naturalism and vivid colouring. Born in Valladolid in 1608, Ponce and his family settled in Madrid soon after, where he would remain until his death, the exact date of which is unknown but estimated to be after 1662. At the age of 16, Ponce was apprenticed to one of the most celebrated still life painters of the day, Juan van der Hamen y León, whose niece Ponce would marry in 1628. Though van der Hamen’s influence can be felt strongly throughout Ponce’s oeuvre, it is later in his career that Ponce began to form a personal style forged from trends emerging from Italian still lifes in the 1650s; from light backgrounds to refined silhouettes, he established a laudable elegance and subtlety that set him apart from his Spanish contemporaries.