Juan Van Der Hamen Y León and the Court of Madrid

A deeply researched and surprising new assessment of one the most brilliant artists of Spain’s Golden Age

This masterful examination of the life and work of Juan van der Hamen y León (1596-1631) serves as a powerful and novel lens for viewing the artistic life of the Spanish court of the 1620s. Van der Hamen is well known as a gifted still-life painter of the Golden Age, but William B. Jordan shows convincingly that the artist was much more than that. Jordan examines Van der Hamen’s entire output of still lifes and considers for the first time the complete oeuvre of the artist most esteemed by his peers for his versatility—for his portraits, allegories, landscapes, flower paintings, and large-scale works for churches and convents.

Only thirty-five at the time of his death, Van der Hamen was mourned as “the greatest Spaniard of his art.” This lofty assessment has long been dismissed as hyperbole, yet an array newly discovered paintings makes the lament understandable. In this lavishly illustrated book--including many works never published before and others transformed by recent restoration--Jordan presents the results of forty years of probing research and sets Van der Hamen in his proper place among the great masters of Spanish art.