Exceptional oil on canvas signed and dated on the right A...º Po..ze f 1646.

Literature

- Cherry, Peter, Archivo Histórico de Protocolos, Madrid, Spain (Prot. 8.142, unfoliated).

- Calylus, Antonio Ponce “Four Still Lifes”. Pages 9-12 (illustrated in colour on pages 10 and 11).

Provenance

Listed on January 14, 1668 in the collection of Ana de Criales, born in Madrid in 1631 and married to Don Gaspar de la Herrán y Ezcaray, who was municipal councilor of Madrid.

Our canvas belonged to a series of four. It is the first described in Ana de Criale's 1668 inventory:

Four fruit bowls one and a quarter meters in length and one meter more or less in width from the hand of Antonio Cast (sic). One with a hare and ducks and a fruit basket, valued (taxed) at twenty ducats each. 

We could try to think that this was a set of the four seasons, as done by van der Hamen, and that our painting would then represent Autumn: it is the small game hunting season in Madrid. It is the grape harvest season.