Attributed to Antonio Ponce (Valladolid, c. 1608 - Madrid, c. 1677)

Attributed to Antonio Ponce (Valladolid, c. 1608 - Madrid, c. 1677)
"The month of February. Still life of fish"
Oil on canvas. Relined. 102 x 160,5 cm. With a carved, gilded and polychromed period wooden frame. Signed on the back by the restorer: "Manuel Fuentes restauró en 1918".
It is very probable that this is one of the previously unknown still life paintings from the series of the months of the year by the painter Antonio Ponce, the one representing the month of February.
It has identical measurements, 102 x 160,5 cm. to the other known still life paintings of the months of the year, April, May, June, August, September, November and December, which can be found in private collections and public institutions.
This painting is from his first phase, in which he worked on the series of large still life paintings dedicated to depicting the months of the year in the workshop of his Master, the painter Juan Van der Hamen y León, from 1624.
Ponce also worked with Francisco Barrera, who also painted a series of months of the year of which only two remain – the month of May in the Slovenská Národní Galeriey in Bratislava and the month of July exhibited in the Strodoceska Gallery in Prague.
Barrera’s influence, which he already used in his months of the year, is the use of different heights to show the elements of the picture, placed on different plinths, which we can see in this still life. Elements that were already characteristic of Ponce are his treatment of light and colour which affect one fish or another in different ways, giving the composition great realism.