Flowers and Fruit in a Chinese Bowl

CC0 Public Domain Designation

c. 1645

Juan de Zurbarán (Spanish, 1620–1649)

Long assumed to be by Francisco de Zurbarán, the leading painter in Seville, Spain, this work is now considered to be by his son, Juan de Zurbarán, who specialized in exquisitely painted still lifes during his short career. The precise, sensuous application of paint and dramatic lighting are typical of Juan, whose style can be identified through only a few signed paintings. The expensive imported Chinese porcelain bowl would have appealed to the wealthy clientele who purchased his refined yet exuberant compositions.

Status: On View, Gallery 211
Department: Painting and Sculpture of Europe

Artist: Juan de Zurbarán
Title: Flowers and Fruit in a Chinese Bowl
Place: Spain (Artist's nationality:)
Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.: 1640–1650
Medium: Oil on canvas
Dimensions: 82.6 × 108.6 cm (32 1/2 × 42 3/4 in.); Framed: 102.9 × 128.3 × 12.7 cm (40 1/2 × 50 1/2 × 5 in.)
Credit Line: Wirt D. Walker Fund
Reference Number: 1947.511
IIIF Manifest The International Image Interoperability Framework (IIIF) represents a set of open standards that enables rich access to digital media from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions around the world. Learn more.: https://api.artic.edu/api/v1/artworks/111059/manifest.json

Catálogo de la galería de cuadros del Exmo. Sr. D. José de Madrazo (Madrid, 1856), p. 108, no. 449.
José Cascales y Muñoz, Francisco de Zurburán, Su época, su vida y sus obras, Madrid, 1911, p. 93.
Hugo Kehrer, Francisco de Zurburán, Munich, 1918, p. 147.
Martin S. Soria, “Zurbaran, Right and Wrong,” Art in America 32, no. 3 (1944), pp. 129, fig. 2.
M. S. Soria, “Francisco de Zurbarán, a Study of his Style,” pt. II, Gazette des Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, 25 (1944), p. 164.
Helmut P. G. Seckel, “Francisco de Zurbarán as a Painter of Still Life,” Gazette des Beaux-Arts, ser. 6, 30 (1946), pp. 288-289, fig. 8 and ser. 6, 31 (1947), p. 62, no. VII.
Patrick T. Malone, “A Spanish Still Life,” pt. 2, Bulletin of the Art Institute of Chicago 42 (1948), p. 17, ill. cover.
Martin S. Soria, The Paintings of Zurbarán. complete edition (London, 1955), p. 177, no. 178, ill.
César Pemán, “Juan de Zurbarán,” Archivo Español de Arte 31, 1958, pp. 201–210, pl. 4.
Paul Guinard, Zurbarán et les peintres espagnols de la vie monastique (Paris, 1960), p. 281, no. 603.
César Pemán, “Sobre bodegones zurbaranescos,” Archive Español de Arte 34 (1961), pp. 275–6.
The Art Institute of Chicago, Paintings in The Art Institute of Chicago: A Catalogue of the Picture Collection (Chicago, 1961) p. 490, ill. p. 97.
Rámon Torres Martín, Zurbarán; El Pintor Gótico del Siglo XVII (Seville, 1963), pp. LXXXVI, 206, no. 114, ill, p. 144.
John Maxon, The Art Institute of Chicago, (London, 1970), pp. 258 (ill), 288.
Ramón Torres Martín, La Naturaleza Muerta en la Pintura Española (Barcelona. 1971), pp. 57-58, 69, 72, pl. 16.
Mina Gregori and Tiziana Frati, L’Opera completa di Zurbarán (Milan, 1973), p. 117, no. 567.
Nina Ayala Mallory, “Museum News: Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age: 1600-1650,” (ex. Review), Art Journal 45, no. 4 (1985), p. 355.
Enriqueta Harris, “Exhibition reviews. Fort Worth and Toledo: Spanish Still Life,” Burlington Magazine 127, (1985), p. 643-44, fig. 98.
William B. Jordan in An Eye on Nature: Spanish Still-Life Paintings from Sánchez Cotán to Goya, exh. cat. Matthiesen Fine Art Ltd., London, 1997, pp. 107–109.
Eduardo Alaminos López and Eduardo Salas Vázquez, “José de Madrazo, coleccionista” in Jose de Madrazo (1781–1859), exh. cat., Fundación Marcelino Botín, Santander and Museo Municipal, Madrid, 1998, p. 174.
Peter Cherry, Arte y Naturaleza, El Bodegón Español en el Siglo de Oro (Aranjuez, 1999), p. 131, 135, pl. 83.
Javier Portus, “La collección de natures mortes espanyoles del museo de Prado: Notes per a una història sense final” in Natures mortes de Sánchez Cotán a Goya. A l’entorn de la Colleccio Naseiro adquirida per al Prado, exhib. cat., Museu Nacional d’Art de Catalunya, Barcelona, 2007, pp. 37, 228, 231.

Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, Exposicion de Zurbarán, 1905, cat. 48.
New York, M. Knoedler and Company, Exhibition Celebrating Knoedler: One Hundred Years, 1846–1946, April 1–27, 1946, cat. 101, as Francisco de Zurbarán.
New York, E. and A. Silberman Galleries, An Exhibition of Paintings for the benefit of the Research Fund of Art and Archeology, The Spanish Institute, Inc., October 12–November 1, 1955, cat. 21.
Newark, New Jersey, The Newark Museum, The Golden Age of Spanish Still-life Painting late 16th through early 19th centuries, December 10, 1964–January 26, 1965, no. 39, as Francisco de Zurbarán.
Fort Worth, Kimbell Art Museum, Spanish Still Life in the Golden Age 1600-1650, 11 May – 4 August 1985; Toledo, Toledo Museum of Art, September 8–November 3, 1985, cat. 46.
Chicago, Art Institute, The Art of the Edge: European frames 1300–1900, October 17–December 14, 1986, cat. 31.
Madrid, Museo Nacional del Prado, Flores españolas del Siglo de Oro. La pintura de Flores en la España del siglio XVII, November 15, 2002–February 2, 2003, cat. 9.
Madrid, Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza, Zurbarán: una nueva mirada, 9 June - 13 September 2015; Düsseldorf, Museum Kunstpalast, 10 October 2015 - 31 January 2016, cat. no. 55.

Don José de Madrazo y Agudo (died 1859), Madrid by 1856 [Madrazo cat. 449]; sold by his heirs to Don José de Salamanca, Marqués de Salamanca, Madrid in 1861 [see Alaminos López and Salas Vázquez 1998, p. 169]. Condesa de Montarco, Madrid by 1905 [lent by her to Madrid 1905; see also handwritten annotation in stretcher]. Art market, probably by June 1933 [photographs both inscribed with the number N3939, bear expertises by Tancred Borenius of June 1933 and August L. Mayer of October 22, 1934; photos in curatorial file]. Knoedler and Co., New York, 1935 [according to New York 1955, cat. 21]. Arnold Seligmann, Rey and Company, New York, by 1936 [this and the following according to Brummer Gallery Records, object inventory card N3939; digitized by the Cloisters Library and Archives, Metropolitan Museum of Art, copy in curatorial file]; sold to Brummer Gallery, New York, May 26, 1936, for $7,000; sold to E. and A. Silberman Galleries, New York, June 25, 1947, as part of a lot for $20,000; purchased by the Art Institute, 1947.

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Date Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

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