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 :. | Desposorios misticos de Santa Catalina de Alejandria | Der Tastsinn | Verklarung der Hl. Maria Magdalena | Martyrium des Hl. Andreas | Hl. Hieronymus, San Jeronimo |
Related Artists:
Louis Rolland Trinquesse
(c.1746-1800) was a French painter.
Marco Zoppo
Cento 1433-Venice 1478
Frans Pourbus
Flemish Northern Renaissance Painter, ca.1545-1581 Painter, son of Pieter Pourbus. His work consists mainly of portraits and religious subjects, although he also executed a number of landscapes and history paintings. He worked mostly for the wealthy patrician class, and his work was instrumental in spreading the Romanism of Frans Floris (his teacher) throughout the Netherlands. It is probable that Frans Pourbus's earliest teaching was with his father in Bruges, but by 1564 he is recorded as working in the Antwerp studio of Floris. According to van Mander, Frans Pourbus and his fellow student Crispijn van den Broeck together completed an altarpiece by Floris after the latter's death in 1570. In 1566 Frans Pourbus married Susanna, a daughter of Cornelis Floris and niece of his master, and in 1569/70 he became a master in the Antwerp Guild of St Luke, though he retained his citizenship of Bruges. Gortzius Geldorp was his pupil in Antwerp in 1570. For Ghent Cathedral Frans painted Christ among the Doctors (the Viglius Altarpiece, 1571; in situ), which includes life-size portraits of Emperor Charles V, his son Philip, their secretary Viglius ab Aytta (d 1577), Jansenius, first Bishop of Ghent (d 1576), and the Duke of Alba. A decade later Pourbus executed the portrait of the Hoefnagel Family (c. 1581; Brussels, Mus. A. Anc.), shown grouped around a harpsichord playing musical instruments, in which the artist included a self-portrait (playing a lute) at the upper left. The picture was acquired in 1696 by Constantijn Huygens the younger from a cousin, a Hoefnagel descendant, in exchange for a horse; the young girl of 15 or 16 with a parrot in her hand was Huygens's grandmother. An inventory drawn up after Frans Pourbus death lists 20 portraits by him, many from the circle of the Duke of Anjou.