In each of these paintings (P596, P597), the central motif around which the entire composition is organised is a glass flower vase, the base of which rests on a stone surface. The flask-shaped vessel contains water. The specific varieties of flowers vary in the two works, but the similarities in the paintings´ dimensions and in the strategies adopted in the depiction of their subjects -together with the fact that both paintings have the same provenance, as far as is known- suggest that they were conceived as a pair. Pendant still-life paintings, particularly ones depicting floral arrangements, were very common in seventeenth-century Spain. Their pairing permitted a play of symmetries to extend beyond the frame of each painting to the wall on which they were hung or, in the case of larger compositions, to an entire room. That both of these paintings were in the Spanish Royal Collections is not surprising, since palace halls were filled with images of flower arrangements and other still lifes, although during the seventeenth century such paintings often came from abroad, particularly from Flanders and Italy. These and other flower paintings by Juan de Arellano reveal a diversity of sources and influences. The painter´s specialty in depicting flowers with a high degree of lively naturalism is connected to the works of the Italian Mario Nuzzi (1603-73). Typologically, Arellano´s works are also related to those of Jan Brueghel the Elder (1568-1625), some of which were in the Royal Collections. Although these were the most important influences on Arellano, his paintings are also linked to local traditions. For example, the placement of the compositional elements on a stone surface was prevalent in still-life paintings from Madrid in the 1630s and onwards, although the use of this visual motif was by no means unique to that city. Representations of glass flower vases were also not uncommon there, and can be found in several works by Juan van der Hamen y León, a painter native to Madrid. One of the two paintings is signed, but both lack a date. They are probably from the 1660s, a period when Arellano found the style he was most comfortable with. The agility and naturalness with which he represents the flowers, his confident juxtaposition of the apparent irregularity of the floral arrangement and the overall symmetry of the composition, his subtle execution of glass and water, and the sense of movement in the stems and blooms, are all qualities associated with Arellano at his mature best, and they permit us to establish a chronological relationship between these two paintings and Flowers in a glass vase (P7921), dated to 1668 (Portús, J.: Portrait of Spain. Masterpieces from the Prado, Queensland Art Gallery-Art Exhibitions Australia, 2012, p. 168).