Juan Ramírez de Arellano

He descends from an illustrious family of sculptors and painters who decorated the Baroque churches of Zaragoza. Juan attended the drawing masterclass of José Luzán (teacher of Francisco Bayeu and Francisco de Goya) and assisted his brother José in creating polychromatic images. His training continued in the workshop of his fellow countryman Pablo Pernicharo, a pupil of Michel-Ange Houasse. In 1754, Ramírez de Arellano was appointed a supernumerary member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando in Madrid for a painting that is now located in that institution’s museum: The Election of Pelagius as King of Spain. In this work and in Saint Anne with the Virgin and Child (Museo Romántico in Madrid) – which is based on the sketch preserved in the Prado – the teachings of Pernicharo and the influence of Corrado Giaquinto are perceptible in the complicated composition and brilliant colouring (Reuter, A. in: Encyclopaedia M.N.P., 2006, vol. V, pp. 1814–15).