The painting is one of the most celebrated of Jusepe de Ribera´s so-called ragged philosophers. Although born in Spain, the artist spent his entire professional life in Italy. He appears to have been largely responsible for the invention of the subject in the mid 1610s, and it enjoyed great success in Italy over the course of the seventeenth century in the hands of artists such as Salvator Rosa and Luca Giordano. The philosopher depicted here was traditionally identified as the ancient Sicilian mathematician Archimedes, since he holds a compass and a sheaf of papers displaying geometric designs, and is surrounded by books. However, in a learned article on the iconography of ancient philosophers published in 1962, Delphine Fitz Darby proposed that he should be identified as Democritus (c.460-c.370 BC) -the laughing philosopher who mocks the folly of human behaviour- on account of his grin. Democritus is usually paired with Heraclitus, the weeping philosopher who despairs at the absurdity of the world. It has to be said that Ribera rarely made a special effort to identify his philosophers (only occasionally do they appear with an inscription, like those belonging to the series of six philosophers painted for the Prince of Liechtenstein in the mid 1630s, or Diogenes, whose attribute of the lantern makes his identity explicit). The Prado painting may be identifiable with a painting of a Philosopher with a compass that belonged to the third Duke of Alcalá, the Viceroy of Naples between 1629 and 1631 and Ribera´s principal patron during those years. It was paired with a philosopher who was shown writing, but the inventory reference does not specify their identity. The Prado canvas, which has been slightly reduced on the right side, is recorded as part of the Spanish Royal Collections from 1700. Ribera moved from Rome to Spanish-governed Naples in 1616 and became official painter to the viceroys, producing large numbers of works that were sent to Spain and especially to the court in Madrid. He painted mostly religious subjects, as well as mythological or classical themes and very occasionally portraits. His works are marked by an intense naturalism, a preference for dramatic illumination and astounding painterly virtuosity. He also produced a small corpus of etchings and was an original and influential draughtsman. The Prado´s Democritus (?) dates from the year in which Velázquez visited Naples and, while it shows no trace of the stylistic influence of Velázquez, it bears a familial relationship -as has often been pointed out- with that painter´s Triumph of Bacchus, or the Drinkers 1628–29 (P1170). Velázquez may have remembered Ribera´s work and others like it when he came to paint his own philosophers, Aesop (P1206) and Menippus (P1207) in the 1630s. Ribera must have posed a model before him to paint this picture, just as he would have done for a portrait. We are given the impression that the distinctive physiognomic traits of the sitter are conveyed with great fidelity: his broad nose and large mouth, the crow´s feet deeply etched into his face on account of his no-doubt perennial grin, and his long, bony fingers all create a sense of the individual. The skin on his face is painted in gritty impasto but has a joyous glow to it, and the halo of lighter-coloured paint around his head (the visual effect of dense underpaint) endows him with an optimistic vivacity. Nicola Spinosa, a specialist in Ribera´s work, has commented eloquently on both the individual and the archetypal character of the representation: It is almost a portrait from life of some peasant from the streets of vice-regal Naples, whose ancient Greco-Levantine traits were distilled by the painter into an image of typically irrepressible Mediterranean vitality and humanity (Finaldi, G.: Portrait of Spain. Masterpieces from the Prado, Queensland Art Gallery-Art Exhibitions Australia, 2012, p. 96).