Spanish Painter and Print engraver , 1591-1652 Information concerning the life and personality of Jusepe de Ribera is sparse. He was born the son of a shoemaker in Jetiva, Valencia Province. He appears to have gone to the city of Valencia while still a boy, but nothing is known of his possible artistic training there. As an adolescent, he traveled to Italy and spent time in Lombardy. Next he was in Parma, from which, it is said, he was driven by the contentious jealousy of local artists. He located himself in Rome until an accumulation of debts forced him to flee. Finally he settled in Naples, where in 1616 he married Caterina Azzolino, the daughter of a painter, by whom he had seven children between the years 1627 and 1636. The Academy of St. Luke in Rome elected Ribera to membership in 1625, and 6 years later the Pope conferred upon him the Order of Christ. It is understandably speculated that Ribera revisited Rome for these events. Being sought after in Naples by the Church and the various Spanish viceroys who ruled there in the name of the Spanish monarchy, he dismissed the idea of returning to his homeland. He was quoted as saying that he was honored and well paid in Naples and that Spain was a cruel stepmother to its own children and a compassionate mother to foreigners. Nevertheless, he generally added his nationality when he signed his works. This practice inspired the Italians to nickname him "the Little Spaniard" (Lo Spagnoletto). The last decade of Ribera's life was one of personal struggle. He suffered from failing health, the taunts of other artists that his fame was "extinct," and difficulty in collecting payments due him. Nevertheless, he kept it from being a tragic defeat by continuing to paint until the very year of his death in Naples. Actually, he was the victim of the local politics and finances. Naples was in the throes of a severe economic depression for which the foreign rulers, the patrons of Ribera, were naturally blamed, and the desperate citizenry was rioting in the streets. It is significant that Ribera continued to receive commissions in such a time, even if there was a dearth of payments. Ribera was inventive in subject matter, ranging through visionary spectacles, biblical themes, genre, portraits, mythological subjects, and portraits of ascetics and penitents.   Related Paintings of Jose de Ribera :. | St Jerome | Hl. Maria von agypten | Arrependimento de Sao Pedro | Mystische Hochzeit der Hl. Katharina von Alexandrien, Desposorios misticos de Santa Catalina de Alejandria. | Taste |
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Loo, Louis-Michel van
Flemish active in France, 1707-1771 Painter, son of Jean-Baptiste van Loo. He trained with his father in Turin and Rome, later attending the courses of the Acad?mie Royale in Paris. He received the institution's first prize for painting in 1726, and in 1728, accompanied by his brother, Fran?ois, and his uncle, Carle, returned to Rome where he was associated with Francois Boucher. On his way back to France, he stayed for a time in Turin, painting portraits of the royal family of Sardinia, the Duke and Duchess of Savoy. In Paris he was admitted to membership of the Acad?mie Royale and in 1735 was appointed assistant teacher at the Academie, becoming renowned as a specialist in portrait painting. Most of his portraits from this period are half-length, combining ideas from Hyacinthe Rigaud's later work with other more natural and innovative ones. On the death of Jean Ranc, Philip V of Spain asked Rigaud to suggest a substitute, and van Loo was proposed. He arrived in Madrid in 1737 and remained there as Pintor de la Corte until 1752, responding with modern aesthetic ideas to the demands of the Spanish monarchs for pomp and splendour. He carried out court commissions but devoted part of his time to teaching, his pupils often becoming studio assistants. He also took an active part in meetings held over a number of years to establish the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de S Fernando, for which he produced the canvas, the Education of Cupid by Venus and Mercury
Douglas Morison
1814-1847
Andrea Di Giusto
b Florence, c. 1400; d Florence, 2 Sept 1450 Italian painter. He was an eclectic minor Florentine master who was influenced by, and at different times imitated, the styles of Masaccio, Masolino, Lorenzo Monaco, Fra Angelico and Domenico Veneziano. In 1426 he was an assistant of Masaccio in the execution of the altarpiece for the Carmine church in Pisa (London N.G.; Naples, Capodimonte; Berlin, Gem?ldegal.; Malibu, CA, Getty Mus.; Pisa, Mus. N. & Civ. S Matteo) and painted its predella panels of the Legend of St Julian and the Charity of St Nicholas (Berlin, Gem?ldegal.). His name appears in the tax registers of the Florentine Archivio delle Decime from 1427 to 1447 and in the protocols of the Arte della Calimala in 1436, the same year in which he received 60 florins for an altarpiece (destr.) for S Lucia dei Magnoli. In 1437 he signed and dated the Assumption of the Virgin with SS Catherine and Francis (Florence, Accad.). His other dated works are a Virgin and Child with Four Saints (1435; Prato, Mus. Com.), which is a copy of Lorenzo Monaco's Monte Oliveto Altarpiece of 1410 (Florence, Pal. Davanzati); a Virgin and Child (1435; Florence, Villa I Tatti), a rustic interpretation of a Virgin and Child by Fra Angelico (Turin, Gal. Sabauda)