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Juan van der Hamen

1596 - 1631

Place Born

Madrid

Place Died

Madrid

Bio

Born in Madrid, Juan van der Hamen was descended from a long line of Flemish and Spanish nobles and military men who for generations had served the Habsburg court in Brussels and Madrid . Like his father and grandfather, he was a member of the Guard of Archers, the elite corps whose duty it was to safeguard the person of the king, accompanying him in splendid dress throughout his daily life, both inside the palace and whenever he appeared in public. As the Guard was far larger than needed for service on any given day, many Archers had time for second careers. Nothing is known of Van der Hamen’s training as an artist, except that it occurred in Madrid, but by the age of twenty-three, before he became an Archer, he was already commanded to paint a still life for Philip III’s hunting palace of El Pardo, outside Madrid. By the time of his unexpected death barely twelve years later, he had worked for many of the great collectors at the court, and his passing was lamented as depriving posterity of ‘the greatest Spaniard his art had ever known’. Partly because of his identification with the new art of still-life painting, and because of the bright burning star of Velázquez, which was beginning to soar higher above the horizon when Van der Hamen died, time has done much to obscure the fame of this artist who seemed so unforgettable to his peers.

Van der Hamen was, however, far from a mere specialist in the then lowly regarded art of the still life. He had a considerable activity as a religious painter and introduced into Spain many of the new genres ushered in with the early Baroque: the landscape, the genre piece, the flower piece, floral garlands surrounding religious images, animal pictures and, most notably, the informal portrait. Indeed, he was the most highly regarded portraitist of his generation. Thus, when in 1626 the Papal Legate, Cardinal Francesco Barberini, rejected the young Velázquez’s portrait of him, it was Van der Hamen who was commissioned to replace it.

Yet it was for his still lifes that Van der Hamen’s contemporaries and posterity justly most honoured him. Roughly the contemporary of his northern counterpart Pieter Claesz, Van der Hamen, vastly developed a genre pioneered by an earlier generation at the turn of the seventeenth century. Inspired by the singular genius of Sanchez Cotan, whose best still lifes, it seems, were owned by the crown and were inaccessible to all but a few, it fell to Van der Hamen to popularise this new genre in Castile. Often adopting the ‘window’ setting used by the Toledan (see no.1 above), and profoundly influenced by the illusionistic spatial clarity of his still lifes, Van der Hamen adapted this format to the taste of the court and took as his subject matter the costly amenities of upper-class life (Fig. 5.1). Aware of developments outside of Spain through his knowledge of the unrivalled collections of Madrid, he introduced many foreign innovations, such as the table-top still life, and was, without doubt, the most influential still-life painter in the first half of the seventeenth century.

Art Works Sold

Meal on a Table: Talavera Plates of Fruit and Meat (pair)

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Historical Period: 1600-1720 Baroque
Meal on a Table: Talavera Plates of Fruit and Meat (pair)
Serving Table with Plates of Sweets, Olives and Cheese

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Historical Period: 1600-1720 Baroque
Serving Table with Plates of Sweets, Olives and Cheese
Still Life with a Basket of Apples, Pomegranates and Cucumbers on a Table Top

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Historical Period: 1600-1720 Baroque
Still Life with a Basket of Apples, Pomegranates and Cucumbers on a Table Top
Still Life with a basket of cherries, apricots and a plate of blackberries

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Historical Period: 1600-1720 Baroque
Still Life with a basket of cherries, apricots and a plate of blackberries