PAST EXHIBITIONS

Image: Juan Sánchez Cotán (Spanish, 1560–1627); Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber; c. 1602. Oil on canvas, 27 1/8 x 33 1/4 in. (68.9 x 84.5 cm). The San Diego Museum of Art, gift of Anne R. and Amy Putnam, 1945.43. Photo by Matthew Meier.

The Meadows Museum launches an exciting new loan program featuring some of the world’s most significant holdings of Spanish art within American collections, offering audiences the singular opportunity to view them within the context of Meadows’s permanent collection. The first painting in the series is the truly extraordinary and enigmatic still life by the artist-turned-monk Juan Sánchez Cotán (1560–1627). Painted around 1602, Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber is among the earliest and best of its genre in the history of European art; this painting set a precedent of the highest standard for still-life painting before the influential examples by Velázquez and other masters of the Baroque period, often referred to as Spain’s Golden Age. Each Masterpiece in Residence loan will be accompanied by a scholarly monograph featuring a single essay by a specialist in the field—in the case of Still Life with Quince, Cabbage, Melon, and Cucumber, Dr. Peter Cherry, Associate Professor, History Of Art at Trinity College, Dublin. As a series, the resulting volumes promise to be a useful reference for researchers and the general public alike.

This exhibition has been organized by the Meadows Museum and is funded by a generous gift from The Meadows Foundation.