THE MASTER OF THE STILL LIFE BY STIRLING MAXWELL (active in Toledo or Madrid in the early 17th century) STILL LIFE WITH A BASKET OF FRUIT AND A HARE Canvas Old restorations Still life, canvas, with restorations 80 x 120 CM - 31,4 x 47,2 IN. PROVENANCE Collection Carmen Ugarte Marti, Valencia. This anonymous artist was named after a Still Life with a Hanging Fish and Baskets of Fruit (Canvas, 63.3 x 84 CM) that belonged to Sir William Stirling-Maxwell (1818-1878), author of Annals of the Artists of Spain, which collected Spanish works preserved outside Spain (the painting is now in the collections of Mrs H. John Heinz III). In these works, the still life master Stirling-Maxwell follows a compositional model established by Sánchez Cotán, and the characteristics of the works of Juan van der Hamen and Felipe Ramirez, with a window, a fresh larder or a stone shelf, and the elements arranged in the foreground, some hanging, standing out against a plain black background (see Still life with baskets of fruit, a pumpkin and bunches of grapes, canvas, 66 x 82 CM in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona). Realism is rendered with particular attention to detail and to the simplicity of the composition, giving the viewer an illusionist effect akin to trompe-l'œil. The hare hanging on the left is particularly close to the composition of the painting by the same master sold in London at Sotheby's on 8 July 2021.