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A portrait of a Venetian soldier wearing armor. He holds a baton in his right hand and his weapons in his left. Turned, he extends his arm toward the viewer, thus opening a third dimension in this composition strengthened by the force of his gaze. It has not been possible to confirm the identity of the sitter, but we must point out the similarity of this work's general composition to that of the p
This painting is both beautiful in appearance and enigmatic on account of its problems of attribution, its authorship having fluctuated between several artists, all belonging to the aesthetic environment of Michelangelo Merisi, Caravaggio. Indeed, although it is now definitely ascribed to Serodine, some critics still believe it to be the work of the latter. Its history can be traced back to 1647,
The dimensions, format, theme, support and pictorial style of these three works -The Crucifixion (P8211), Lamentation over the Dead Christ (Museo de Salamanca, CE 106) and The Resurrection (P8212)- all point towards a common provenance, an altarpiece with traditional subject matter linked to the Christological cycle, with special emphasis on the episodes related to the Passion, the death of Christ
It is not known when or how these two paintings -Saint John the Baptist and Saint Juan de Ribera (P947)- came to be the property of Luisa Enríquez, but their common provenance has never been seen as an indication of a link with the same group of art works. However, the technical study that was recently carried out on the two panels shows that they are directly and unequivocally related in t
A bird seller is tricked by a young man who shows him some coins with the right hand while robbing a rooster with the left. While the nationality of this artist is unknown, he seems to have learned his craft in Italy as his work shows a preference for the naturalistic approach of Caravaggio (1571-1610), and for some concepts of the Venetian school. His curious nickname comes from a certain similar
Philip II’s two daughters Isabel Clara Eugenia (1566-1633) and Catalina Micaela (1567-1597), were repeatedly portrayed from the time they were very small by Alonso Sánchez Coello, one of the king’s court painters. Those likenesses had the characteristics of court portraits, reflecting not only the sitters’ features and their royal context, but also the type of society and state being depict
Cleopatra VII (r. 51-30 BCE) was the sovereign of Egypt and the last representative of its final royal family, the Ptolemaic dynasty. Feeling that all was lost after her armies and those of her Roman lover and consort, Mark Antony (83-30 BCE), were successively defeated and the latter was killed, she chose to end her own life to avoid being captured by their mutual enemy, Octavian, the future Empe
This companion to The Rape of Ganymede (P119) is Eugenio Cajés’s copy of one of Antonio Corregio’s most famous and important paintings, which was in Spain’s Royal Collections. It presents an erotic episode from Ovid’s Metamorphoses, in which Jupiter takes the form of a swan to gain access to Leda, a nymph. The original, now at the Gemâldegalerie in Berlin, is one of the most prestigious ero
Religion succoured by Spain (c.1572-75), belongs to the last group of paintings that Titian sent to Philip II in 1576, one year before the artist’s death. As such, it is almost seven decades older than the earliest work by Titian, The Virgin and Child between Saint Anthony of Padua and Saint Roch (P288), c.1510. Contemplating the two together allows viewers to recognise and admire Titian’s excepti
This painting was first attributed to Cecco del Caravaggio by Joan Ainaud de Lasarte in 1947. At that time, very little was known about this painter, who was later identified as Francesco Buoneri, an artist working in Rome during the second decade of the seventeenth century who had previously been the most outstanding follower of Caravaggio. His relationship with the latter may also have been more
Born in Cremona, Campi’s style combined Mannerist elements, such as the contorted bodies of the figures, and naturalistic ones, such as the detailed depiction of objects. In the late 1560s his painting became increasingly religious in tone and more emotionally expressive, aspects that he conveyed through pronounced contrasts of light and shade. This work was painted for the church of Saint’Eustorg
This canvas presents one of the most persistent subjects in Pedro Orrente´s substantial output: the Nativity and the Adoration of the shepherds, a popular theme among seventeenth-century Spanish painters. Bucolic scenes were also captured successfully throughout the sixteenth century and much of the seventeenth century by the influential family of Italian painters: Jacopo, Leandro and France
This canvas, which the Venetian artist Parrasio sent to Philip II without a prior commission in order to gain the monarch’s favour, celebrates the birth of the heir to the Spanish throne in a mythological-allegorical mode. The Infante Fernando, son of Felipe II, appears as a boy, surrounded by seven ladies —embodiments of the theological and cardinal Virtues. His mother, Ana de Austria, lies on a
This mythological scene is one of the three currently-known paintings by Pieter Fris. It depicts the moment when Orpheus, having descended into the realm of darkness to search for his wife Eurydice, killed by a snake bite, embraces her in the presence of Persephone and Hades, who has allowed him to rescue her from the Underworld and return her to life, provided he does not look back until he reach
Helen’s move from Sparta to Troy is described very differently in the two oldest narratives. In the Iliad, Homer describes Helen’s reticence to abandon Menelaeus, suggesting she was kidnapped by Paris. However, in his Ephemeris Belli Troiani (fourth century BC), Dictys Cretensis describes her departure as the willing flight of a woman in love. Both versions are represented in sixteenthcentury Ital
This painting commemorates events that took place in 1571: the defeat of the Turkish armada at Lepanto on October 7, and the birth of the infante Fernando, heir to the throne, on December 5th. The proximity of these two events led them to be viewed repeatedly as gifts from Heaven in circles close to the monarch. Thus, a letter from Luis de Requesens, Governer of Milan to Sancho de Padilla, dated D
Here, the doge of the Republic of Genoa emerges through the gates of the city in order to receive Don Álvaro de Bazán, the Marquis of Santa Cruz, who has arrived as the commander of a fleet intended to protect the city from assault by the French troops led by the Constable Lesdiguières and Charles Emmanuel I, the Duke of Savoy. In the distance, the city´s populace jubilantly g
It is not known when or how these two paintings -Saint Juan de Ribera and Saint John the Baptist (P950)- came to be the property of Luisa Enríquez, but their common provenance has never been seen as an indication of a link with the same group of art works. However, the technical study that was recently carried out on the two panels shows that they are directly and unequivocally related in t
