Tomás Yepes

TOMÁS YEPES (Valencia, ca. 1610-1674).
"Still life".
Oil on canvas. Relined.
Attached report by Don José Gómez Frechina.
Work reproduced in the catalog "Tefaf Maastricht", 2017. p.283.
It presents restorations on the pictorial surface.
Measurements: 71 x 110 cm; 93.5 x 132.5 cm (frame).
A distinctive feature of much of Yepes' production is the importance of symmetry in his compositions, also present in this canvas that focuses attention on a yellow melon on a plate open in twelve slices. This same element is also present in a canvas signed by Yepes and made known by Perez Sanchez in the monographic exhibition dedicated to the Valencian still life painter by the Bancaja Foundation in 1995. It should be noted that the presence of the partridges and the virtuosity with which they are portrayed are very reminiscent of the "Still Life of Birds and Freedmen" which belongs to the collection of the Museo Nacional del Prado (Madrid). In the same way that the figs present similarity with another piece of the Prado Museum entitled "Still life of figs".
Tomás Yepes is currently considered the most outstanding still life painter of the Valencian Baroque and, in fact, to him we owe the greatest interest in this genre in the Valencian sphere. Although he was born around 1610, Yepes already enters the second half of the century, and in fact he continues working until the seventies, although he does not evolve too much; in his work we do not see the dynamism of Arellano's flowers, since he continues to arrange them in a radial, geometric way, in the manner of the first Spanish Baroque, as we see in this canvas. The present work continues the precepts of this master of still life. His language is characterized by several features that we can observe here: importance of naturalism, detailed and precise technique especially visible in the qualities of the objects, mainly warm chromatic range, typically Valencian; influence of the Neapolitan still life in the brightness and sumptuousness of some elements and a certain tenebrist character in the lighting. The artist, as Yepes did in his day, places all objects in the foreground: Today we know little biographical information about Tomás Yepes; his works appear signed between 1642 and 1674, the year of his death, and he develops a still life related to Castile and Italy, although we do not know how the latter influence reached him. His works are currently preserved in the Prado Museum, the Museum of Fine Arts in Valencia and the Monastery of the Descalzas Reales in Madrid, among other public and private collections.