Considered to be, with good reason, the most beautiful nude in nineteenth-century Spanish painting, this work provides eloquent testimony of the modernity that made Rosales stand out in the Spanish artistic panorama of his time. He would have earned himself a prominent place among the era´s artistic vanguard in Europe if his brilliant career had not been cut short by his premature death. Neither a
This work belongs to the so-called peasant interiors, one of the new genres of painting that emerged and developed in Flanders and Holland in the early seventeenth century. In Houbraken and in early inventories they are described as een boertje (a little peasant) or as toeback rookerchen (tobacco smokers). The consolidation and appreciation of this genre was fostered by the satirical and moralisin
This painting formed part of the collection of the Marquis of Castro-Serna (Madrid) where, according to Michel (1887) -who repeats information given by Alfonso de Stuers- it appeared in 1887 as a pendant to the portrait of Nicolaes Pancras (whereabouts unknown). Gudlaugsson (1959) assumes that both were replicas of the original portraits of Nicolaes Pancras and Petronella de Waert (current whereab
This work belongs to the so-called peasant interiors, one of the new genres of painting that emerged and developed in the Netherlandsin the early seventeenth century. In Houbraken and in early inventories they are described as een boertje, (a little peasant) or as toeback rookerchen (tobacco smokers). The consolidation and appreciation of this genre was fostered by the satirical and moralising lit
This work is an excellent example of the way in which an interest in the art of Spain´s Golden Age combines in Mariano Fortuny´s paintings with the close study of subjects made from life. Nude Old Man in the Sun reveals Fortuny´s familiarity with the work of Jusepe de Ribera, whose painting Saint Andrew (P1078) he had copied on a previous occasion. And as in that copy and others Fortuny made (such
In 1899, Pinazo performed the first studies from life for the portrait Alfonso XIII as a cadet, commissioned by the captain of the Valencian military after he was awarded the medal in that same year. The painting is signed and dated 1901. In this work, the painter combines the scenography of royalty – which is especially visible in the sumptuous palace setting – with the nearly frail image of an a
María Isabel of Braganza was born in Lisbon on 19 May 1797, daughter of John VI of Portugal and Carlota Joaquina of Spain. She became queen of Spain when she married her uncle, Ferdinand VII, on 28 September 1816 and became his second wife. She died during childbirth in Aranjuez on 26 December 1818. It must be noted that this is a posthumous portrait. The artist was the son of Vicente L&oac
This painting entered the royal collection during the reign of Charles IV, King of Spain. In his inventory of the Casita del Principe (Cottage of the Prince) in El Escorial, it is registered as a work by Lucio Massari. This attribution also appears in the inventory of Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, in Palacio Real Nuevo, where it was located in 1814. However, in the Real Museo’s inventory of 1857,
Fortuny was particularly interested in the human types who were part of Rome’s urban landscape. Prominent among them were these Capuchin friars dressed in the characteristic brown tunic and long cloak of their religious order, who carried a bucket and stick when begging for alms. The space is hinted at chiefly by the shadow cast on the wall and the ground by the figure, whose wiry hair is depicted
In the summer of 1874, Fortuny found the Tyrrhenian sea to be a constant stimulus for painting outdoors. The cobalt-blue of the expanse of water is the predominant feature of this seascape, depicted from off the coast of Sorrento or Capri. Visible in the background is the bay of Naples with Mount Vesuvius and, at its foot, hinted at by a tiny reserve space, the buildings of the coastal towns, amon
Antonio Fabrés, one of the leading fin-de-siècle orientalist painters, made various paintings of thieves condemned to death (as indicated in Arabic on the shingle at the head of this one), surrounded by the objects they had stolen. Despite the cruelty of this punishment, the artist takes pleasure in the vivid colors and attractive arrangement of the clothing.
This watercolor offers a profile view -similar to a low relief- of a child or young faun sitting on a fragment of an Ionic entablature with egg-and-dart decorations above an astragal. The slender, nude child recalls the Italian boys who worked as models in academies and were depicted by European painters and sculptors. At the academies where he studied, Fortuny had drawn numerous nude boys, some p
A decisive breakthrough in the career of the Tuscan painter Lodovico Cigoli came with his contribution to a series of six paintings required for the new altars for St Peter’s Basilica in Rome. According to the reliable account of the Florentine biographer Filippo Baldinucci, the intervention of Grand Duke Ferdinando de Medici was critical towards Cigoli being awarded the contract in 1604 for the l
This watercolour is part of a group of works Fortuny painted shortly before returning to Rome in 1868 using the people around him as models. María Teresa was the only child born of the marriage between Luis and Luisa de Madrazo, uncle and sister of Fortuny’s wife respectively, and the artist portrayed her aged two and a half. She is accompanied by a construction on a draught board and her f
Hasta la Guerra Civil, en la que fue destruido el santuario una noche de diciembre de 1937, La Piedad de Ponzano estuvo en el templo de la Virgen de Riánsares, en Tarancón (Cuenca), sobre la cripta donde fue enterrado en 1873 el primer duque de ese título y segundo marido de la reina María Cristina de Borbón, Fernando Muñoz. Después de la guerra, según testimonio de Dimas Pérez Ramírez, se conserv
Rico moved to Andalusia in 1870 and worked alongside his friend Mariano Fortuny. While in Seville he painted views of the area around the Guadaira river, dotted with market gardens and orange trees. Rico brilliantly captured the effects of light and atmosphere through the use of a pale, vibrant palette.
El catalán Luis Rigalt fue uno de los más destacados representantes del paisajismo español del siglo XIX y su producción pictórica abarcó prácticamente toda la centuria, evidenciándose en ella su evolución paulatina, desde los postulados más tardo románticos hasta llegar a un naturalismo de carácter realista. Junto a esta faceta artística, el pintor cultivó también a lo largo de su vida otra, no m