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 and the Angel | Martyrium des Hl. Andreas | The club-foot | Der blinde Isaak segnet Jacob | Franz von Assisi und der Engel mit der Wasserflasche |
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Zdenka Braunerova
(April 9, 1858 - May 23, 1934 in Prague) was a Czech painter and graphic designer. A prominent Czech artist, she takes her place on history alongside the likes of Chittussi, Mršt??k, Zeyer, Marten, Joža Uprka and sculptors František B??lek and Jan Zrzavý. Zrzavý described her as "... an extraordinary woman, funny, educated, genuine." He continued, "She had a wonderful, incisive intellect and a special charm. When I met her, she was sixty. Mirth and optimism are had by a only a few people. She supplied me with faith and zest for life",
charles edward halle
French painter, born in 1846 and died in 1919
PITTONI, Giambattista
Italian Rococo Era Painter, 1687-1767 Italian painter and draughtsman. With Giambattista Tiepolo and Piazzetta, he was the most representative history painter of the Venetian Rococo. Besides altarpieces for Venetian and other churches as well as devotional images for private clients on both sides of the Alps, he painted subjects from mythology and Classical literature for collectors and connoisseurs in a Rococo idiom all his own; it is these secular pictures for which he is best known. Zava Boccazzi's catalogue raisonn of Pittoni's paintings (1979) includes 247 extant autograph works and 117 paintings now lost, destroyed or untraced. Binion's catalogue raisonn? of the artist's drawings (1983) lists 304 sheets. Pittoni's total output must have been far larger, as is evident from the drawings, many of which are studies for unknown works. For instance, Pittoni must occasionally have painted decorations for secular buildings and palazzi, probably in fresco, though none has yet come to light, with the notable exception of the few frescoes with scenes from the Life of Diana, painted in 1727 in the palazzetto Widman in Bagnoli di Sopra near Padua.