Felix Lorente

FELIX LORENTE (Valencia, 1712 - 1787).
"Still life with pomegranates".
Oil on canvas.
Work exhibited in "Bodegones y Floreros". Spanish Society of Friends of Art. National Library, Madrid 1935.
Work reproduced in Cavestany, J. Floreros y bodegones en la pintura española. National Library, Madrid 1936-1940. Cat. no. 76 p. 160; Navarrete, B. Don Félix Lorente, pintor valenciano (1712-1787) Nº 274, 2000, pp. 27-34, note 1 p.34.
It has an informative label on the back (Sociedad Española de Amigos del Arte), 1935.
It has damages in the frame.
Signed in the lower right area.
Measurements: 46 x 71 cm; 54,5 x 80 cm (frame).
The Spanish still life tradition in which the still life was presented to the spectator with the intention of transmitting a second reading of religious character, invites to relate this work with the Lenten period. The unappetizing presence of the butchered meat , the chickpeas, the main product of the Lenten stew, and the presence of the pomegranates that are allusive to the resurrection, are elements that contribute great symbolism to this scene of apparently everyday naturalistic aesthetics.

Belonging to the late Spanish Baroque, Felix Lorente was a still life painter born in Valencia and trained as a disciple of Evaristo Muñoz. With his master he learned religious and history painting, themes that he cultivated although no works of his in this genre have been preserved. Lorente must have attended the recently created Academy of Fine Arts of Santa Barbara, to which he presented in 1754 his painting "Telemachus" (not preserved, cited by Navarrete). In 1768 he applied for admission to the Royal Academy of San Carlos, which had replaced the previous one, and although he did not achieve his goal at this time he was appointed appraiser of paintings. Finally, in 1777, he was admitted as an academician of merit, after presenting "two oil paintings, the first of which expresses a half figure of natural size with a demonstration of the interior anatomy and explanation of all its parts" (A. Sánchez López). The same or similar canvases, with which he intended to "continue in the career of Anatomy", were presented two years later at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid. At the same time, and also in 1779, Lorente signed a pair of still lifes under the title "Don", showing off his academic status. These are two works in which memories of Tomás Yepes can still be appreciated. Fecund painter and praised by Marcos Antonio de Orellana, despite his problems to solve the problems of perspective, Lorente focused his attention on the objective representation of each of the pieces with which he composed his works, of simple appearance and humble character, but located in unreal space both exterior and interior, in the form of shelves or kitchens, and sometimes with some figure. Currently, works by Félix Lorente are preserved in various private collections, including the Abelló and F. Boix.