Cerezo, Mateo

Born to a modest painter of the same name, he appeared in Madrid around 1641, when he entered the workshop of Carreño de Miranda and became one of his most promising disciples. In fact, he probably collaborated with Carreño on some of the most ambitious commissions from around 1645.
An openly sensitive artist, Cerezo must have observed and reused everything he saw around him in Madrid, and while there is no documentation of his working for the court, his presence there is clearly reflected in the knowledge he gained of Van Dyck and Titian, whose influences are visible in certain female figures and in a light Venetian technique. His style evolved towards an ever lighter pallet, but his promise was cut short by premature death in 1666.
He is known to have been an accomplished and successful still-life painter, and according to Palomino, he was well known at that time for “small still lifes” painted “with such superior excellence that no one could surpass them, or possibly even equal them.” His only known surviving signed and dated still lifes (1664) are in Mexico City’s Museo de Bellas Artes, but their style is so personal that they allow others to be quite confidently attributed to him.