Francisco Rizi

He was a Spanish painter, son of the Italian painter Antonio Ricci, who arrived in Spain with Federico Zuccaro to work in El Escorial, and brother of the also painter and art theorist Juan Andrés; he spelled his name Rizi. After beginning his training with his father, he went on to attend the workshop of the King's painter and treatise writer Vicente Carducho, of whom he became one of his most brilliant pupils. He was a very successful painter and one of the greatest figures of the great pictorial baroque of Madrid from the middle of the 17th century. A quality that he was able to transmit to his disciples, as he trained artists as unique as Juan Antonio Escalante, José Antolínez and Claudio Coello.
From a very young age he was linked to the court -around 1638-, becoming the King's painter in 1656. He frequently worked on ephemeral decorations, for example, those of the arrival in Madrid of Queen Mariana of Austria in 1649 or the monument of the Cathedral of Toledo in 1669, as well as on the numerous stages and rigging for the theater of the Buen Retiro Palace, of which he was director for decades. All this is proof of his versatility in all facets, as he painted both in oil and fresco following the Bolognese Agostino Mitelli and Angelo Michele Colonna, and from architectural decorations he managed to move on with the same success to religious painting or, in the well-known "Auto de fe de la Plaza Mayor de Madrid", to carry out a highly effective contemporary story. Apart from his work in the court, he was especially linked to the cathedral of Toledo, working there in all kinds of works, paintings on canvas and in fresco - emphasizing those of the famous Ochavo -, together with the mentioned ephemeral works, getting to receive the title of painter of the Cathedral in 1653.
In 1661 his request to settle in the Alcazar of Madrid was granted, and in 1673 he wrote his famous memorial to Queen Mariana of Austria, where he made a declaration of grievances to his person, considering himself neglected in favor of Carreño, who in 1671 had been appointed painter of the chamber, despite his status as the oldest Royal painter. In 1685 he was commissioned the great canvas of "The Sacred Form" for the sacristy of the Monastery of El Escorial, which he would not finish -and which his disciple Coello would complete-, when he was surprised by death on August 2 of that year in the same Monastery.
His painting shows the full development of the new baroque forms that were gaining prominence at the time. With his loose and carefree brushstroke, of full colorful sumptuousness, he manages to create effects of dynamism and movement full of expressiveness. An outstanding chapter in this sense will be his creations in fresco, where he shows mastery of architectural perspectives, creating spectacular and lively representations of celestial openings. Among his numerous works found in the Prado it is worth mentioning, in addition to the aforementioned "Auto de fe" from the Royal collections, "El Expolio de Cristo" and "la Profanación de un crucifijo", two of his most dramatic works, from the Capuchins of Madrid, which entered the Museum's collection through the Museo de la Trinidad, and the monumental "San Andrés", acquired in 1985, which came from an altar of the Iglesia del Salvador in Madrid. (García López, D. In: Enciclopedia M.N.P, 2006, Volume V, 1880-1882).