JOSE FELIPE PARRA PIQUER (Valencia, 1824 - h.1864) .; second half of the 19th century.

JOSÉ FELIPE PARRA PIQUER (Valencia, 1824 - ca.1864); second half of the 19th century. "Still life with flowers". Oil on canvas. Presents a period frame made of stucco. Signed in the lower left corner. Measurements: 49 x 32 cm; 68 x 51,5 cm (frame). Glass vase that houses a bouquet of flowers with a vertical and symmetrical composition, placed on a table, which stands out for the golden decoration. The vase is placed on a neutral and dark background on which stand out, directly illuminated only by the colour of the flowers themselves. The flowers are very large and open, showing their moment of maximum splendour, worked in mainly pink and blue tones, and rigorously ordered. The composition is sober, clear and geometric, with a static arrangement of the flowers, except for the one on the right-hand side of the table. A painter specialising in still life and flower paintings, José Felipe Parra was also known for his paintings on historical themes, particularly his canvas "Charles V picks up Titian's fallen brush", now in the Museo de Bellas Artes in Valencia. The son of Miguel Parra, an outstanding painter of flowers and still lifes and painter to Ferdinand VII, he studied at the San Carlos School of Fine Arts in Valencia. At the age of thirteen he began to stand out as a flower painter, and during his student years he won several prizes in all academic disciplines and was finally appointed academician of merit in 1843. His pictorial work is generally restrained in colour, characterised by a very correct draughtsmanship and reveals a profound influence of the Baroque still-life painters, especially the Spanish, Flemish and Dutch. He held several exhibitions of his work, notably those held at the Academia de San Fernando in Madrid in 1832 and at the Liceo in Valencia in 1845. He also took part in the National Exhibitions of Fine Arts between 1860 and 1964. José Felipe Parra is represented in the Museo de Bellas Artes de Valencia, the Museo Nacional de La Habana and the Museo de Cerámica y Artes Suntuarias González Martí, as well as in various private collections.