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The pair of Basket of Flowers on a Plinth, signed and dated 1664, now in the same private collection, was executed when Arellano was at the height of his powers and exemplifies the decorative and stylistic characteristics of his art that made his works so sought after by collectors in the 17th century.
Arellano was able to maintain the interest of his admirers by varying the formats of his pictures. In the case of these works, he transformed one of his most popular picture types, the basket of freshly picked flowers, by perching the basket on the edge of semi-ruined classical style entablatures that act as plinths. In creating this architectural fantasy, Arellano borrowed the motifs from the prints of the classical architectural orders of Marcantonio Raimondi (1475-1539), representing in one painting a simplified version of a Corinthian entablature and in the other, an even more simplified version of this, without its frieze. These architectural features enter the pictures from opposite sides, thus allowing the works to flank a central element in a decorative scheme, and endow them with certain grandeur.
The combination of ruins and flowers in these paintings heralds a picture type that became particularly popular in the following century.
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