Luis Melendez
There is an old building near my home with a plaque to show the location of Miguel Jacinto Melendez’s workshop. He was a painter in the court of the Spanish King Felipe V. I often thought about his young nephew Luis Egidio Melendez (1716-1780) and supposed he used to work there too. Luis Egidio Melendez was one of the best still-life painters in the world. Among his well-known works, there is a much interesting self-portrait (exhibited at the Louvre) and a series of forty-eight still-life paints ordered in 1771 by the Prince of Asturias, the next King Charles IV who intended to decorate his own private quarters. Thirty-nine are nowadays a part of the Prado Museum’s collection. I’d like to specially focus on one of these called, Servicio de chocolate,…
