Meléndez’s works are characterized by his interest in familiar, everyday realities, which he places in the immediate foreground as if seeking direct contact with the viewer. And yet, in the context of this desire to create a repertoire of common foodstuffs and utensils, we occasionally find a more distinguished and decorative object, less popular than its everyday kitchen surroundings. Here, for example, the immediate foreground contains an elegant silver salver that serves as the pedestal for a lead-crystal glass almost certainly from the Royal Crystal Factory of La Granja. It’s surface gleams with carefully calculated highlights and alongside it are a fork and plate of the same metal, with a beveled molding that matches the salver. On it, Meléndez has placed an open box of jelly whose surface reflects a ring of bread resting on a wrinkled napkin. The composition is completed by a large cork cooler containing a bottle whose slender neck extends from the top, reflecting light and skillfully contoured by the string that completes its cork.

From a technical standpoint, this painting a combination of virtuoso skills to present a plethora of details with compensated volumes illuminated with an apt chiaroscuro that brings out the different parts of the composition and contributes to its realistic appearance. Compared to other works by Meléndez, this one is particularly exquisite, possibly because of its more refined objects and their masterful combination to present the components of an appetizing dessert. The signature’s date, 1770, offers us a reference point for dating other works that lack this precision. This work stands out for the grace and lightness of its peculiar structure, which differs from those painted in the preceding decade. Its play of opposing lines and the ease with which the objects are arranged suggest a dynamism not often found in Meléndez’s paintings, and together, these aspects suggest a different, more playful and joyous aesthetic (Text from Luna, J. J. : El bodegón español en el Prado. De Van der Hamen a Goya, Museo Nacional del Prado, 2008, p. 116).