A compendium of common motifs in Meléndez´s oeuvre is found in this painting, affording it a sense of proximity and trueness to life of great artistic and documentary value. Set out among plums and figs on the characteristic wooden tabletop with visible grains and knots are a loaf of bread and a typical Talavera or Puente del Arzobispo wedding jug in white with an ochre-yellow antimony decorative fillet and characteristic 18th-century barley-sugar twisted handle expressed with formal plenitude. The white of the elegant popular receptacle is truly an accomplishment of the artist´s descriptive ability, as he faithfully captures its texture and the effects of light on its glassy surface. Immediately behind it are several decorated earthenware plates (of the so-called adormidera or rosilla series), a keg for syrup or preserves, and an Alcorcón-ware lebrillo or bowl with a fish inside. These devices give the composition a distinct air and break the possible repetitive routine of groups of pots and foodstuffs found in other paintings, affording it a different significance and conveying to the viewer a sensation of trueness to life, as is common throughout the master´s oeuvre. The arrangement of planes is masterfully achieved and easily creates a sensation of space. Similarly, the light in general is expressed with great virtuosity, with notable dabs of impasto applied to the surfaces to create relief and emphasise the property of the matter struck by the carefully painted luminosity that bathes the objects. We also find slight touches of light on a few secondary spots that help contour the forms, shaping their volume with greater definition. The colour contrasts enrich the composition even further, endowing the scene with a special agility that prevents any possible bulkiness. The notable precision of the forms and sharpness of the picture surface displayed by the artist in this painting are also seen in the x-radiograph, in which the contours of the main receptacles and foods -jug, keg, bread and plums- are also delimited with exactness, and the different planes of the table are clearly distinguished. To the naked eye even the grain of the wood appears more clearly defined than in other still-life paintings, despite the fact that not even the palest strokes show up in the x-rays as, although they contain lead white, the pigment was very diluted. For the same reason, the pots and fruits added at a late stage in the creative process display less of a contrast, such as the figs, which were not initially assigned a set position in the scene, and were therefore added in front of the jug once it was completed. Meléndez´s concern to capture the plasticity of the objects he depicts leads him to very significant extremes in his quest for perfection. One is the effort to reduce the volumes of the motifs to a few elements that tend towards formal refinement or, at the least, evoke pure geometric forms disguised as fruits with a very regular appearance or utensils with a similar formal expressiveness. This does not prevent him depicting the real features of each element by means of carefully studied details, as the initial idea, to which any subsequent intention is subordinated, is to convey a conscious vision of the sensible world. The freshness that Meléndez achieves in his treatment of the tactile qualities of matter is praiseworthy. While it can be appreciated in all his works, in some it is perhaps emphasized even more by the modesty of the piece itself and the economy of the means employed to develop his accomplished technique (Text drawn from Luna, J. J.: From Titian to Goya. Great Masters of the Museo del Prado, National Art Museum of China-Shanghai Museum, 2007, pp. 377-378).