JUAN DE ARELLANO

Antonio Palomino in his Spanish Parnassus of Laureate Painters published in Madrid in 1724 included a biography of Juan de Arellano, and it actually happens to be the main literary source about this outstanding painter; it assures that Arellano was “so superior” at painting flowers, that “no other Spaniard excelled him in his masterful skill”, and it’s a big fortune that the history of Spanish art keeps this record.

He was born in Santorcaz in 1614 but soon lost his father and together with his mother they moved to Alcalá de Henares, where he started to learn at the workshop of a now unknown painter. He spent 8 years there and at the age of 16 returned to Madrid, to the workshop of Juan de Solís, a painter of certain prestige, who worked for the Queen Isabel of Borbón. During the first years he lived off small devotional paintings and other minor orders, including painting carriages, until he decided to take up flower painting, and really excelled in this genre.

In 1639 he married María Banela; but soon was widowed, and without hesitation married for the second time to María de Corcuera, daughter of his teacher Solís. They had four children: a daughter who in due time married one of his most significant collaborators, Bartolomé Pérez de la Dehesa; and three sons, who also chose the same profession as their father. The last twenty years of Arellano’s life were the most wealthy and intense, as he became an owner of “one of the most famous art shops which existed under this government”, according to Palomino. It stood in front of San Felipe el Real terraces – in what now is the calle Mayor, near Puerta del Sol, but now the building is gone. There they painted not only flower and fruit still-lives, but also landscapes, allegories, hunting scenes, seasons, real portraits and religious images, almost on the commercial scale. This allowed him to live quite a wealthy life, which can be judged by the inventory of his possessions compiled after his death in 1676.

Most probably he started with copying other flower painters, especially Italian painter Mario Nuzzi (1603-1673), and to his elegance added the rigour of flamenco still-lives of Jesuit painters - Daniel Seghers and de Jan Brueghel de Velours, two of the greatest representatives of this genre. Later to this perfect blend he added the sketches of flowers arranged mainly in pairs or fours drawn from nature, and the lightless, variety and subtlety are characteristic to all Arellano’s work.

Claudio Coello 6 28001 Madrid tel. (34) 91 435 0174 galeria@josedelamano.com