 Unappreciated in his time, when he died in Madrid in 1780, he was indigent.Meléndez updated and enriched the austere tradition of Spanish still life painting, which had been initiated by the 17th-century masters Juan Sánchez Cotán and Francisco de Zurbarán.Like them, Meléndez studied light's effects, texture and the color of fruits and vegetables as well as the earthenware, glass and copper pots beside which the fruit is displayed.