Authors

Juan de Flandes (ca. 1465-Palencia, Spain, 1519) was a Flemish painter considered one of the most important representatives of the Spanish Renaissance.The only conclusive information available on him reveals his work in Castile between 1496 when he entered the service of Isabella the Catholic as court painter and 1519 when he died in Palencia.Although there is no record of his age when he arrived in Castile in 1496, it may be assumed that he was around thirty years old - at least twenty-five - and therefore was probably born around 1465, or possibly a year or two later. While the surname by which he was known in Castile indicates that he was born in Flanders, this is not certain, as the German and Flemish terms were interchangeable at the time. One of the best historical examples of this i...

Joachim Patinir, also called Patenier or Patinier (Dinant or Bouvignes ca. 1480 - Antwerp, 5th October 1524), was a Flemish painter of landscapes and religious subjects. He is considered a precursor of landscape painting as an independent genre. Continuing in the Antwerp Renaissance school of Gerard David, he was also influenced by Lucas van Leyden and Van der Weyden. In his paintings, the main theme is often relegated to the background in favour of a heightened role of Nature and the environment. He makes extensive use of the range of greens and compositions with high horizons.Most of his works are housed in the Prado Museum, which held an exhibition of his works in 2007.

Raffaello Sanzio (Urbino, 6th April 1483 - Rome, 6th April 1520), was also known as Raphael of Urbino or simply Raphael. He was an Italian painter and architect of the Renaissance. In addition to his paintings which would be admired and imitated for centuries, he made important contributions to architecture and as an inspector of antiquities, was interested in the study and conservation of Greco-Roman remains.The son of a modestly important painter, he was considered a child prodigy due to his precocious ability and after his father died, he trained in the workshops of several prestigious artists. At the age of 25 he received his first official commission, the decoration of the Vatican "Stanze” or rooms, where he painted frescoes such as The School of Athens, considered one of h...

Tiziano Vecellio di Gregorio or Titian in English (Pieve di Cadore, Belluno, Véneto, circa 1488/1490 - Venice, 27th August 1576), was an Italian Renaissance painter and one of the greatest exponents of the Venetian School. Hailed by his contemporaries as "the sun amidst small stars” in reference to the final line of Paradiso in Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy, Titian was one of the most versatile Italian painters, equally capable of painting portraits, landscapes (two of the subjects that would bring him fame), mythological scenes, and religious topics. He had a long career, during which his work passed through many different stages, undergoing such drastic stylistic changes that some critics find it hard to believe that his early and later paintings were created by ...

Giovan Francesco Penni, il Fattore (Florence, 1488 - Naples, 1528) was a 16th-century Italian painter of the roman school and a student of Raphael, for which reason he was also called “il fattorino di Raffaelo".

Pieter van Aelst or Pieter van Aelst III (c. 1495 - c. 1560) was a Flemish tapestry weaver whose workshop, started by his grandfather, was one of the leading establishments in Flanders in the first half of the 16th century.

Michel (or Michiel) Coxcie (Mechelen, Belgium, 1499 - 1592) was a Flemish painter, nicknamed "the Raphael of the Low Countries" for his great success in the Romanist style.After an apprenticeship with Bernard van Orley in Brussels, he travelled to Haarlem and Rome, where he resided around 1530-39. He learned the technique of fresco mural painting and was the first Nordic master to practise it. In 1532, he decorated the chapel of Cardinal Enckenvoirt in the Roman church of Santa Maria dell'Anima.The Original Sin, the wing of a triptych whose central panel has since been lost (Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum)....

Giulio Pippi, better known as Giulio Romano (Rome, ca. 1499-Mantua, 1st November 1546), was a 16th-century Italian painter, architect and decorator, a prominent pupil of Raphael, whose innovations in High Renaissance classicism helped to define the style known as Mannerism. Romano's drawings have been highly prized by collectors. Engravings of his works executed during this period played a highly influential role in disseminating the Mannerist style throughout Europe.

Jan Cornelisz Vermeyen (Beverwijk, ca. 1504-Brussels, 1559), also called Jan Mayo or Jan Barbalonga, was a painter of the Flemish Renaissance.

Pieter Coecke van Aelst or Pieter van Aelst (Aalst, 14th August 1502 - Brussels, 6th December 1550) was a Flemish painter, engraver, draughtsman and publisher. He also produced tapestries and was the father-in-law of Pieter Brueghel the Elder. He was also the uncle of the painter Joachim Beuckelaer. Not to be confused with Pieter van Aelst, a famous tapestry maker.

Leoni (1509 — 22nd July 1590) was a renowned Italian sculptor who travelled in Italy, Germany, Austria, France, the Habsburg Netherlands, and Spain where he created most of his works. Leoni is regarded as the finest medallist of the Cinquecento. He built his reputation on the basis of commissions received from Habsburg monarchs such as Charles I of Spain and his son Philip II. His medium of preference was bronze, although he also worked with marble, alabaster, carved precious gems, as well as leaving some finished works in wax (the material used to model many of his sculptures), as well as designing coins. He mainly created portraits and allegorical compositions.

The Helmschmids of Augsburg were one of the most prestigious families of blacksmiths and armourers of late medieval Europe. The name, occasionally spelled Helmschmied, literally means helmet smith. The most well-known members of the family were Lorenz Helmschmid (active from 1467, died in 1515), Kolman Helmschmid (1471 - 1532) and Desiderius Helmschmid (1513 - 1579). The Helmschmids made armour for Philip II, King of the Spanish Empire, for the high nobility of the Holy Roman Empire including the Emperor, for the Archdukes of Austria and Tyrol, as well as other rich and powerful clients of the time.1 They competed for fame, prestige and noble patronage with the two other best known and most prestigious families of armourers of the time in Europe, the Seusenhofer family of Innsbruck (Austr...

Philip II of Spain, also called "the Prudent" (Valladolid, 21st May 1527 - San Lorenzo de El Escorial, 13th September 1598), was King of Spain from 15th January 1556 until his death; King of Naples and Sicily from 1554; and King of Portugal and the Algarves- as Philip I - from 1580, achieving a dynastic union that lasted sixty years. He was also jure uxoris King of England and Ireland by his marriage to Queen Mary I in 1554 until her death in 1558. He was the son and heir of Charles I of Spain and Isabella of Portugal, brother of Mary of Austria and Joanna of Austria, grandson of Joanna I of Castile and Philip I of Castile by his father, and of Manuel I of Portugal and Maria of Aragon by his mother. He died on 13th September 1598 at the age of seventy-one in the monastery of San...

One of the most skilled armourers of Milan in the second half of the 16th century, he created numerous armours and "fornitures", i.e. a homogeneous set of interchangeable parts which could, by replacing or adding supplementary parts, become a "standing", "mounted" or "jousting armour".He ran a profitable business, creating veritable masterpieces of armour for the numerous Italian and European courts of the time, including the House of Farnese of the Duchy of Parma and Piacenza and Savoy, thereby achieving considerable fame and fortune.His decorative style is divided into two stages: the first is characterised by engraved bands, generally burnished and gilded, and fully decorated with floral or grotesque elements and allegorical symbols; the second st...

Gasol, Jerónimo. Tremp (Lérida)?, 1st half of 16th century - mid-16th century – Valladolid?, 05.1605. Secretary to Philip II and prothonotary of the Council of Aragon. Jerónimo Gasol is the most prominent member of a Catalan clan of royal officials - they hailed from the town of Tremp - who made his career in the Council of Aragon. He was joined by his son, Francisco Ventura Gasol (Madrid?, 1582-Madrid, 3 June 1619), also prothonotary of Aragon, and the son of his brother Galcerán, his nephew Juan Gasol (†1615), who was the King’s liege subject in the secretariat of Catalonia, scribe of the Estudi General of Lérida, and procurator of the castellany of Amposta. They represent an intermediate stage in the succession of Aragonese lineages...

Lavinia Fontana (Bologna, baptised on 24th August 1552 - Rome, 11th August 1614) was an Italian painter of the early Baroque or late Mannerist period. One of the most important painters of her time, she ran her own studio and was the official court painter to Pope Clement VIII. She has an extensive catalogue of works, of which 135 are known to have existed, although only 32 dated and signed works have survived.

Pantoja de la Cruz, Juan. Valladolid, ca. 1553 – Madrid, 26.10.1608. Chamber painter of Philip III. He started his first apprenticeship at a very early age, in the workshop of Alonso Sánchez Coello. In one of his wills —which provide a great deal of information on his life and work— he refers to him as “my master”. He did not however stay in Madrid, but left shortly for France after the death of Elisabeth of Valois in 1568, in the company of Jooris van der Straeten, a colleague of Sánchez Coello at Court. From 1572 onwards, Van der Straeten worked as “Peintre de la Reine” for Elisabeth of Austria, the sister of Anna of Austria. After the death of Elisabeth's husband, Charles IX of France, she r...

Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (Milan, 29th September 1571 - Porto Ercole, 18th July 1610), also known as Caravaggio, was an Italian painter active in Rome, Naples, Malta and Sicily between 1593 and 1610. His paintings combined a realistic observation of the human figure, both physical and emotional, with a dramatic use of lighting, which had a decisive influence on Baroque painting.Caravaggio’s combination of careful anatomical observations with a dramatic use of chiaroscuro came to be known as Tenebrism. He made this technique a dominant stylistic element, darkening the shadows and transfixing his subjects in brilliant rays of light. He vividly depicted crucial moments and scenes, often of violent struggles, torture and death. He preferred working quickly with live models, forgo...

Peter Paul Rubens (Siegen, Holy Roman Empire, present-day Germany, 28th June 1577 - Antwerp, Duchy of Brabant, Habsburg Netherlands, present-day Belgium, 30th May 1640), also known as Peter Paul Rubens, Pieter Paul, Pieter Pauwel or Petrus Paulus, was a Flemish Baroque painter. His exuberant style emphasised dynamism, colour and sensuality. His main influences were Ancient Greek and Roman art and the Italian Renaissance painters, especially Leonardo da Vinci; Michelangelo, whose depiction of anatomy he admired; and above all Titian, whom he considered his master and of whom he stated that "with him, painting has found its essence".He painted a wide variety of subjects: religious and historical scenes, classical mythology, hunting scenes, landscapes, portraits, as well as drawings...

Ribera, Jusepe de. Lo Spagnoletto, Xàtiva (Valencia), 17.02.1591 – Naples (Italy), 03.09.1652. Painter and engraver.The son of a humble Valencian shoemaker who settled in Xàtiva, he was the couple’s second son, followed by a third son named Juan who would later accompany his brother to Italy.Details of his early education are unknown, as there is no proof of his apprenticeship under Francisco Ribalta as claimed by early biographers.What is known however is that at some time between 1607 and 1609 he left for Italy, from whence he was never to return. There are records of his being in the service of the Farnese family in Parma in 1611, where he painted Saint Martin for the church of Saint Prosper, known only from copies, and which was widely celebrated as ...

Pietro da Cortona, whose real name was Pietro Berettini (or Berrettini) (Cortona, 1st November 1596 - Rome, 16th May 1669) was an Italian painter and architect....

Rodríguez de Silva y Velázquez, Diego. Velázquez. Seville, 06.06.1599 baptised. – Madrid, 06.08.1660. Painter.Born in Seville to a Portuguese father (Rodríguez de Silva) and a mother from Seville (Velázquez), he was baptised on 6th June 1599. His father was an ecclesiastical notary in the Seville Chapter, and this brought him in touch with books and people of culture at an early age.In 1609, and not quite ten years old, he spent a few months at the workshop of Francisco de Herrera the Elder.The master's bad temper soon drove Velázquez away from his workshop, and on 17th September 1611, he signed an apprenticeship contract with Francisco Pacheco, undertaking to stay at his new master's house for six years.Pacheco was a man of cult...

Chabacier Solimón, José. José or Jusepe Leonardo. Calatayud (Zaragoza), pre-21.03.1601 – Zaragoza, pre-09.1653. Painter. Only son of the artisan arquebusier Domingo Chabacier and Juana Solimón, both of whom were of Jewish descent. He was baptised in the church of San Andrés in Calatayud on 21 March 1601 and always used the family pseudonym as his first surname, after his grandfather Leonardo Chavaciel, as did his uncle, the painter Francisco de Leonardo (who died in 1638), who also worked in Soria. His training as an artist must have been entirely in Madrid, as he moved to the capital in 1612 when he was barely eleven, following his father's marriage to Jerónima de Soro. Four years later a...

Jan Raes II (1602 - 1639) was a Flemish tapestry weaver mainly active between 1617 and 1639 in Brussels.

Ercole Ferrata (Pellio Intelvi, 1610 - Rome, 10th July 1686) was an Italian sculptor, one of the greatest exponents of the Roman Baroque. A pupil of Alessandro Algardi, together with his fellow pupil Domenico Guidi, he collaborated with Algardi to create the Vision of Saint Nicholas for the church of Saint Nicholas of Tolentino in the Gardens of Sallust in Rome. Ferrata would later gradually move away from the classicism of Algardi and François Duquesnoy towards the more expressive style of Gian Lorenzo Bernini. Around 1660, he created a sculpture of Saint Agnes at the stake and a Martyrdom of Saint Emerenziana for the church of Sant'Agnese in Agone. Under Bernini's supervision, he carved the Angel with the cross for the Sant'Angelo bridge, and collaborated in the carv...

Carreño Miranda, Juan. Avilés, 25.03.1614 – Madrid, 03.10.1685. Painter. Son—possibly natural— of an Asturian nobleman who traded in paintings, and the nephew of Andrés Carreño (c. 1591-1660), a modestly renowned painter established in Valladolid. He moved to Madrid with his father at a very young age, and joined the studio of Pedro de las Cuevas (who died in 1644), a painter who was highly esteemed as a teacher and whose workshop included many of the Madrid painters of the age, such as Antonio de Pereda, Francisco Camilo, Antonio Arias and Juan Montero de Rozas, as students. Afterwards, he joined the workshop of Bartolomé Román, pupil of Vicente Carducho, in order to learn the techniques of colour. The traces of Carducho that ca...

Roldán, Luisa Ignacia. La Roldana. Sevilla, 08.09.1652 baptised. – Madrid, 10.01.1706. Sculptor.Luisa Ignacia Roldán, also called La Roldana, was the daughter of the sculptor Pedro Roldán. She was probably born in August 1652, as her baptismal certificate is dated 8th September of the same year. She was the fourth of nine children born to Pedro Roldán and Teresa de Jesús de Mena y Ortega, who went on to form a large family of sculptors.Very little is known of her early childhood and youth owing to the lack of surviving documentation. In any case, she was probably trained at her father’s workshop, one of the most important in Seville and which received a large number of commissions. History has traditionally claimed that father and daughter wor...

François Hyacinthe Rigaud (Perpignan, 18th July 1659 – Paris; 29th December 1743) was a French portraitist.He was the most important painter of portraits at the court of Louis XIV of France. His instinct for impressive poses and grandiose presentation precisely fitted the tastes of the royalty, ambassadors, clergy and courtiers who sat for him. In 1682 he was awarded the Prix de Rome.In his portraits, Rigaud captures with great accuracy the garments and details of the background, thus making them an accurate document of the fashions of the times. His most well-known work is the 1701 portrait of Louis XIV, on display at the Louvre in Paris.According to Jacques Thuillier, professor at the Collège de France, “Hyacinthe Rigaud was one of those French painters who achi...

Van der Goten Peeters, Jacob. The Elder. Brussels (Belgium), 1659 – Madrid, 1724. First master tapestry weaver of the Royal Tapestry Workshop of Santa Bárbara.He was the son of Peter van der Goten and Wilhelmina Peeters, and was married to Anna Maria Canyuwel, with whom he had six children: Franciscus Ignatius, Jacob, Peter, Maria Theresa, Cornelius and Adriaan.When the first Bourbon king ascended the throne, there were no industries in Spain that could fulfil the demand for luxury goods such as tapestries, carpets, porcelain, fine fabrics and clothing. Even everyday items such as cutlery, stockings and paper had to be imported.Following the Treaty of Utrecht (1713-1714), which ended the War of Succession, the former Habsburg Netherlands had fallen into the hands of the Empero...

Procaccini, Andrea. Rome (Italy), 1671 - La Granja de San Ildefonso (Segovia), 1734. Italian painter, architect and decorator.He was born in a wealthy Italian family and began his training in the studio of Carlo Maratta, the most prestigious Roman artist of the times. Together with his master, he restored the frescoes painted by Raphael in the halls of the Vatican and also participated in the decoration of the Baptismal Chapel of Saint Peter’s, as did his master and Andrea Passeri. In 1719, Pope Clement XI appointed him supervisor of the Royal Tapestry Workshop of San Miguel, for which he produced a series of tapestry cartoons that made him famous. During this time, he began to teach younger artists at the Accademia di San Luca. His close connections to the Roman aristocracy and high...

Juvarra, Filippo. Messina (Italy), 1678 – Madrid, 31.01.1736. Architect.The most renowned architect of his time in Italy and arguably in Europe, his extensive and well-studied European career drew to a close in Madrid, where he had been called by Philip V to build the New Royal Palace in 1735.Apparently descended from Spaniards —surnamed Ibarra— who settled in Sicily when it was part of the Habsburg Monarchy, Juvarra’s initial artistic education was with his father, a silversmith, in Messina. Although he followed his father's wish that he join the Church, and was ordained at the age of twenty-five, from this moment onwards, the young priest developed a passion for architecture and moved to Rome, where he would begin his real training. There he began ...

Meléndez, Miguel Jacinto. Oviedo (Asturias), 1679 – Madrid, 25.08.1734. Painter. Miguel Meléndez (or Menéndez, according to the original form of the surname) is the first representative of a long line of painters extending well into the 19th century. His brother Francisco was the first to propose the creation of an Academy of Fine Arts in Madrid, which he presented to Philip V in 1726; he was the painter of miniatures for the Royal Household and, together with his sons Luis (who became the best 18th-century still-life painter of Spain) and José Agustín, he produced splendid miniatures for the choirbooks of the new Royal Palace in Madrid. Francisca, the daughter of José Agustín, born in Cádiz in 1770, was admitted to the Royal A...

Houasse, Michel-Ange. Paris (France), ca. 1680 – Arpajon (France), 30.09.1730. Painter.Son and pupil of René-Antonine Houasse, a renowned painter who collaborated with Charles Le Brun on decorations at Versailles, including the Grand Trianon, and the Tuileries Palace. He accompanied his father to Rome when the latter was appointed director of the Académie de France in Rome from 1699 to 1705. Upon his return to Paris, he entered the Académie Royale de Peinture et de Sculpture in 1706 to complete his training, was accepted as a member the following year, and appointed “peintre ordinaire du roi” in 1710.Meanwhile, Philip V, grandson of Louis XIV and King of Spain since 1700, had been seeking new portrait artists for his Court, as the current ap...

Jean-Antoine Watteau (Valenciennes; 10th October 1684 - Nogent-sur-Marne; 18th July 1721) was a French painter. He is one of the great geniuses of the late French Baroque and early Rococo periods. He is credited with creating the genre of the fêtes galantes: scenes of amorous courtship and leisure, endowed with an idyllic, bucolic charm and bathed in an air of theatricality. Some of his best-known themes drew upon the worlds of Italian comedy or ballet.

Pietro Paolo Cristofari (1685-1743) was an Italian mosaic painter of the late Baroque period who worked in Rome. He was the son of Fabio Cristofari. He became the first director of the Vatican’s mosaic studio, and was responsible for decorating the domes and altars of St Peter's Basilica. He personally directed the creation of mosaic altarpieces based on paintings by artists such as Giovanni Francesco Romanelli, Guercino, Domenichino and Nicolas Poussin.

Gómez de los Ríos, Antonio. ?, early 18th century – mid-18th century. Embroiderer to the Royal Household. Considered the best and most representative embroiderer at the Madrid Court in the first half of the 18th century, his career is said to have begun in 1729, when he accompanied Philip V on several journeys as a supernumerary draper, although he had already worked for the Crown several years earlier. He was subsequently appointed to the post of chamber embroiderer. He advanced his career within the palace, being granted a daily allowance in 1730, similar to other supernumeraries in different offices. In his early years at Court, he taught embroidery to Charles III of Spain before the latter's departure for Italy in 1731. As an adolescent, the monarch made good u...

Giaquinto, Corrado. Molfetta (Italy), 18.II.1703 – Naples (Italy), 1766. Painter.He was born in a small town near Bari, in the region of Apulia in southern Italy, in a territory which, at the time was culturally subject to the artistic interests of Naples, the nearest city. Although he had been born into a family without any involvement in the arts, his father being a tailor from Manfredonia, his parents tried to persuade him to enter the church, although they had discovered his artistic vocation at an early age. In this regard, his encounter with the Lombard architect and notable mathematician, Ludovico Vittorio Iacchini, who was, at the time, Master of the Order of Saint Dominic, was to be a turning point. The two met during the period when Iacchini was living in Molfetta, whi...

John Ellicott (1706-1772) was a late 18th-century English machinist and scientist. The son of a watchmaker also named John Ellicott, he is considered the successor to George Graham (1673-1751). He developed the cylinder escapement and used it in his watches, as well as a gridiron pendulum. He was appointed clockmaker to George III of England and a Fellow of the Royal Society. In addition to making clocks, he also manufactured other scientific instruments such as barometers.

Loo, Louis-Michel van. Toulon (France), 02.03.1707 - Paris (France), 20.03.1771. Painter.French painter descended from a family of Dutch artists dating back to the 16th century, of whom Jacob van Loo stood out as a 17th-century master of genre paintings and portraits. Louis-Michel trained in the workshops that were opened one after another by his father, Jean-Baptiste Van Loo, in Turin and Rome, having previously worked, like other members of the saga, in various towns in Provence. To complete his training, the young artist travelled to Paris and entered the Académie Royale, where he won the Grand Prix de Rome in 1726. He returned to the Eternal City in 1727 with his brother François and his uncle Carle, where he remained until 1732.Following his return to Paris, he was ...

Van der Goten Canyuwell, Cornelius. Brussels (Belgium), 1714 – Madrid, 1786. Master tapestry weaver, draughtsman and director of the Royal Tapestry Workshop of Santa Barbara. He was the sixth youngest child born to the master tapestry maker Jacob van der Goten the Elder and his wife Anna Maria Canyuwell. He was six years old when his father, a notable Brussels tapestry maker, accepted Philip V's invitation to work in the tapestry workshop he was planning to set up in Madrid to decorate the Royal Sites. Jacob van der Goten was accused of treason by the Austrians, who ruled the Spanish Netherlands back then, and he was imprisoned for nine months in Antwerp Castle, from which he fled in poor health and with his pocketbook in tatters. The van der Goten family and a few of their jour...

The Royal Tapestry Workshop of Santa Barbara is one of the royal workshops for the manufacture of luxury items created by Spanish mercantilist policy during the Age of Enlightenment. It was founded in 1720 by Philip V, in the likeness of the French royal workshops under the Colbertist model, following the interruption of the imports of Flemish tapestries after the Peace of Utrecht, and it supplied the pieces intended for the royal chambers. Since 1889 it has been located in the district of Pacífico in Madrid, in a building constructed between 1889 and 1891. It continues to carry out the activity for which it was created.

Mengs, Anton Raphael. Aussig, Bohemia, now Ústi nad Labem (Czechia), 12.03.1728 – Rome (Italy), 29.06.1779. Painter and art theorist.He was the son of Ismael Mengs (1688-1764), court painter to Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony, and of Charlotte Bormann; and the brother of Therese Concordia, (1725-1806/8), also a painter and miniaturist. Rigidly educated by his father in painting, enamel work and miniatures, he also learnt pastel drawing techniques, which was highly fashionable at the Court. After his mother's death (1731), he spent his childhood in Dresden until 1740. In 1741 the family moved to Rome, where he continued his studies by making copies of Michelangelo and Raphael at the Vatican; studied anatomy at the Arcispedale di Santo Spirito in Rome and attended t...

Urquiza, Domingo. ?, 1730 – 1806. Bronzeworker and silversmith for the Royal Household. Born in the bishopric of Osuna (Seville), he was a metalworker for the Royal Household from 1793 onwards. His family was also engaged in the same trade (Ildefonso and Manuel). He appears to have settled at the Royal Court around the time when he was a member of the Guild of Silversmiths of San Eloy in Madrid. He began his career at court in 1750 and worked alongside the Italian bronzeworkers Ferroni, Vendetti and Giardoni. In 1770 he was commissioned to create a design for the crown and halo of Our Lady of Montesa of the Church of Valencia. In 1793 he produced several objects for the Royal Household, including bronze ornaments for four chests of drawers for the royal bedroom, frames and chairs fo...

Tiepolo, Lorenzo. Venice (Italy), 08.08.1736 - Somosaguas (Madrid), 02.05.1776. Painter and engraver.He was the youngest of ten children born to Giambattista Tiepolo and Cecilia Guardi. As a child, he assisted his father and his brother Giovanni Domenico in decorating the frescoes in the residence of the Prince-Bishop Karl Philipp von Greifenclau zu Vollraths, in Würzburg between 1750 and 1753. That year they returned to Venice, however Lorenzo maintained his friendship with the prince-archbishop.From then onwards, he began to create his own works, as demonstrated by his various pastel portraits painted in those years, the most notable of which is a 1757 Portrait of Cecilia Guardi.By 1761, Lorenzo was a member of the Venice Painters’ Guild. The following year, the Tiepolo family...

Castillo Aragonés, José del. Madrid, 14.10.1737 – 05.10.1793. Painter. José del Castillo was born in Madrid in 1737. The son of Juan Tomás Castillo and Melchora Aragonés, he began his studies when he was barely ten years old, joining the drawing classes at the Preparatory Council of the Academy of San Fernando under José Romeo. His excellent qualities brought him to everybody’s notice, and in 1751 he received a grant from José de Carvajal y Lancáster to study in Rome under Corrado Giaquinto (1703-1766), with whom he would also return to Spain in 1753. The Italian had been summoned by Ferdinand VI to continue the decorations of the Royal Sites following the death of Jacopo Amigoni the previous year. Once in Madrid,...

Maella Pérez, Mariano Salvador. Valencia, 21.08.1739 – Madrid, 10.05.1819. Painter. The son of Tomasa Pérez and Mariano Maella, a modest painter, he received his first art training from his father at a very early age, soon demonstrating a great aptitude for drawing. His father then took him to Madrid so he could train under Felipe de Castro, with whom he practised drawing and modelling for two years. Given his obvious talent for painting, De Castro himself encouraged Maella to continue his studies at the Academy of San Fernando. Once he entered the institution in 1752, Antonio González Velázquez, professor of Drawing at the Academy, paid him especial attention for his commitment to learning, not to mention the young artist’s courtship of one of his...

François-Louis Godon (1740-1800), a Frenchman, was appointed Chamber Clockmaker by Charles III on 9th May 1786 and assigned to the service of the Prince of Asturias. He worked mainly as a “marchand mercier" or art dealer. One year ago, he had entered into an agreement with another renowned watchmaker, Jean-Baptiste-André Furet (1720-1807) in Paris, to manufacture most of the clocks that Godon sent to Madrid to decorate the new Royal Palace and the royal sites. Shortly afterwards, he began working with the Swiss enamelworker Joseph Coteau (1740-1801), who made many of the dials for these clocks....

Swiss enamelworker

Goya y Lucientes, Francisco de. Fuendetodos (Zaragoza), 30.III.1746 - Bordeaux (France), 16.IV.1828. Painter. Goya was accidentally born in Fuendetodos, the village of his maternal family. Braulio José Goya, a gilder of Biscayan descent, and Gracia Lucientes, from a well-off peasant family, lived in Saragossa, where they married in 1736. Francisco was the fourth of six siblings: Rita (1737); Tomás (1739), also a gilder and sometimes mentioned as a painter; Jacinta (1743); Mariano (1750), who died in infancy; and Camilo (1753), an ecclesiastic and chaplain in the collegiate church of Chinchón from 1784. After the school, which tradition accepts with reservations as that of the Piarist fathers of Saragossa, he entered the workshop of José Luzán (1710-1785...

Lagrú, Joseph. Valsaín (Segovia), c. 1760 – Madrid, 1812. Glass engraver. Master engraver at the Royal Glass Workshop of La Granja de San Ildefonso. The son of Luis Lagrú, a sculptor at the Royal Site Valsaín, where he was born, and the elder of two brothers, Joseph Lagrú began working as an apprentice aged nine in the engraving room at San Ildefonso engraving room, circa 1775. During the six winter months, he attended the Academy of Drawing of San Ildefonso in the evenings to perfect his skills in this area. At the age of twenty-five he was assigned to the general store in Madrid as the official overseer of the engraving room, at the same time attending drawing classes at the Royal Academy of San Fernando. He held this post until 1787, when he ret...

Brambilla e Ferrari, Ferdinando. Fara di Gedda d’Adda (Italy), 1763 - Madrid, 23.01.1834. Painter. The son of Francisco Brambilla and Antonia Ferrari, he began painting at a very early age, and was working as a painter in Milan when it was suggested he join Alessandro Malaspina's expedition at the end of March 1791. His inclusion was a matter of some luck, as two other individuals had been invited: Juan Ravenet, a painter from Parma who hastened to accept, and Blas Martini, who, by rejecting it, enabled the young Brambilla, who was already a professor at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera, to join. After an eventful journey by horse-drawn carriage from Barcelona to the kingdom’s capital, he headed to Galicia. After a few weeks, they arrived in Veracruz, having briefly s...

González Velázquez Tolosa, Isidro. Madrid, 15.05.1765 – 07.12.1840. Architect and engraver. Isidro Velázquez —as he would sign his works— hailed from a family of artists who were renowned in Spanish courtly and academic circles from the start of the 18th century until the first half of the 19th century. He was the second son of Antonio González Velázquez, painter to Charles III, and Manuela Tolosa y Aviñón, and the nephew of Luis and Alejandro González Velázquez. While both his uncles were painters, Alejandro was also an architect. While his brothers Cástor and Zacarías also followed their father, who had been the student of Corrado Giaquinto in Rome (1746-1752), Isidro embraced architectur...

Gasparini, Matteo. ?, 1st half of 18th century – 1774. Painter, designer and plasterer. His date and place of birth are unknown. He arrived in Spain from Naples on 13th January 1760, at the summons of King Charles III to decorate the King’s Chamber in the Royal Palace of Madrid, to carry out renovations on the Royal Sites, as well as to work on the new palace of La Granja. He was accompanied by his wife and children, as well as a number of Italian artists who would collaborate in the execution of these new works. During this king’s reign, there was a significant amount of furniture making, to the extent that a royal workshop was founded to create bronzes and marquetry for furniture. The workshop was headed by Giovanni Battista Ferroni, who carved the designs supplie...

Soria, Narciso Práxedes. Madrid, 1786 – 13.11.1854. Goldsmith and diamond cutter. He belonged to a large family of silversmiths. His father, Narciso Severo Soria, was master to numerous apprentices and one of the wealthiest smiths at the Court. His brothers Fernando and Manuel, and his nephew Victor, also worked as goldsmiths. Three of his sons, Ildefonso, Juan and Antonio, would followed in his footsteps. He began his training under his father, who applied for his apprenticeship certificate on 30th August 1803. He appeared for his first apprentices' examination on 2nd December 1805, without obtaining any awards. On 28th July 1807, he was granted the title of manciple at his father's request. In the list of officials published by the College of San Eloy on 1st Januar...

Pierre-François Ladvocat, also known as Camille Ladvocat, was a French bookseller and publisher, born on 29th August 1791 in Caudebec-en-Caux and died on 4th September 1854 in Paris.

Texedor Díaz, Rafael Facundo, Rafael Tegeo or Rafael Tejeo. Caravaca de la Cruz (Murcia), 27.11.1798 – Madrid, 03.10.1856. Painter. Called “Tegeo” or sometimes also “Tejeo”, he was a complex artist who depicted with great clarity, the academic eclecticism of the painters of an entire generation, halfway between Neoclassicism and Romanticism. His refined and precise artistic language with a characteristic fluid, clear and emphatic drawing, ranged from the declamatory style of his early compositions -with a highly visible influence of the classical tradition- to the delicate simplicity of his portraits of the bourgeoisie that attest to the maturity of his art, always characterised by an exquisite artistic sensibility. His early training was with the Ge...

Franz Seraph Hanfstaengl (Bad Tölz, 1st March 1804 - Múnich, 18th April 1877) was a German painter and lithographer. He became the photographer to the Royal Court of Bavaria. Hanfstaengl was born in a family of commoners. At the recommendation of his teachers in the village where he lived, in 1816 he left for Munich to study drawing with Hermann Josef Mitterer. From 1819 to 1825, he studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Munich and graduated as a lithographer. He kept up a correspondence with Aloys Senefelder. Hanfstaengl became very popular as a society lithographer in Munich. In 1833, he set up his own workshop in Munich, which he headed until 1868 and to which he later added an art publishing department and a photography studio (1853). From 1835 until 1852, Hanfstaengl pro...

Canops, José. Brussels (Belgium), 2nd half of 18th century – 16.04.1814. Cabinetmaker of the royal workshops.In 1759, during the reign of Charles III, he was called to work in the "King's Chambers" in the New Palace of Madrid. Thanks to this monarch, a royal workshop was founded to manufacture bronzes and marquetry for furniture. The workshop was headed by the Italian Giovanni Battista Ferroni.In 1777, José Canops obtained the King’s permission to reside in the city of Sprá (Liège) for six months. Upon his return to Madrid, he continued to lead the Royal Cabinetmaking Workshop until 1781. The designs for the suite of rooms were provided by Matteo Gasparini, but were executed by a number of cabinetmakers from the workshop, including Cano...

Gustave Le Gray (Villiers-le-Bel, 1820 - Cairo, 1884) was a French researcher and photographer.

Debas et Dujant, Fernando. France, mid-19th century – early 20th century. Photographer.He settled in Spain in the 1870s, and started his professional career in Madrid with his brother Edgardo Debas, also a photographer by profession. They set up a studio at 22, Calle del Príncipe, under the trade name of Fotografía Parisiense Debas Hermanos. After several years of working together, they went their separate ways. On 30th March 1875, King Alfonso XII granted Fernando the title of chamber photographer, as well as permission to use the royal coat of arms on his establishment's displays and invoices. From that date onwards, and in the same studio, he styled himself as "First Photographer to His Majesty the King and the Princess of Asturias". In 1877 he col...

André Amédée Gustave Slomszynski, Słomczyński or Slomczynski, known professionally as Slom (9th July 1844 - 27th December 1909), was a French painter, engraver, illustrator and mapmaker of Polish origin. A former communist, he lived in exile in Switzerland from 1871 to 1880.

José Vera y González (Burgos, 1861-Toledo, 1936) was a Spanish painter, draughtsman and photographer.

Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud (3rd May 1866 - 5th January 1951) was a French photographer and military officer.Jean-Baptiste Tournassoud was born in the village of Montmerle-sur-Saône (Ain, France) in 1866. In 1887 he exchanged the shoemaking trade that he had inherited from his father for military service, and in 1895 he graduated from the Military Academy at Versailles. At the same time in 1892, as he started his military career, he also developed an extraordinary love of photography, using his camera to record snippets of daily life in the military, thus compiling a body of photographs that were aesthetically in tune with pictorial iconography, taking great care with both the lighting effects as well as the compositions. In 1890, he met the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumiére wh...

Demaría López, José Luis. Campúa. Jerez de la Frontera (Cádiz), 1870 – Madrid, 22.09.1936. Photojournalist, war correspondent, journalist and theatre impresario. He learnt the rudiments of the trade in the studio of Manuel Compañy, a renowned portraitist. Towards the end of the century, when Compañy acquired and refurbished the famous Greco gallery located at Calle de Alcalá 19 and formerly owned by Eduardo Díaz Otero —one of the best photographers of the time— he entrusted its management to his most trusted assistant. Encouraged by the popularity of his chronicles of events among readers of the press, Demaría López decided to set himself up as an independent photographer. In keeping with the f...

Fábrica de bronces fundada en la segunda mitad del siglo XVIII por Pierre-Philippe Thomire

El Comité Olímpico Internacional (COI; en francés: Comité international olympique, CIO; en inglés: International Olympic Committee, IOC) es un organismo encargado de promover el olimpismo en el mundo y coordinar las actividades del Movimiento Olímpico. Fue creado el 23 de junio de 1894 por el barón Pierre de Coubertin en París con el fin de revivir los Juegos Olímpicos Antiguos. Está encargado de supervisar y administrar todo lo concerniente a los Juegos Olímpicos. Es dueño de todos los derechos asociados a los símbolos olímpicos: la bandera, el himno, el lema, el juramento y la competencia misma. Controla los derechos de transmisión de los juegos, la publicidad y demás activida...

Willem de Pannemaker fue un tejedor que permaneció activo entre los años 1535 y 1578 en Bruselas. Realizó a lo largo de su vida famosos tapices destinados a papas, reyes y aristócratas. Se desconocen el lugar y la fecha exactos de su nacimiento y de su muerte.

Domingo Maria Sanni (siglo XVIII) fue un pintor y arquitecto italiano del período barroco tardío, activo en España. Confundido por algunos con el pintor toscano Sani di Pietro, lo era. Fue pintor de cámara del rey Carlos III de España, por lo que probablemente residió en Madrid. Vivió durante muchos años en el Palacio Real de San Ildelfonso, donde sirvió a la reina madre, Isabel Farnesio. Se le describe participando en la construcción de una galería de escultura en el Palacio La Granja. Sus pinturas en el Museo del Prado reflejan temas de Bamboccianti.

La Real Fábrica de Vidrios y Cristales de La Granja es una fábrica de vidrio fundada en el siglo xviii en San Ildefonso, cerca de Segovia, España. Se encuentra a 11 km al sureste de Segovia por la carretera CL-601

La Oficina Pro Cautivos, también llamada Oficina de la Guerra Europea, fue una institución fundada por el rey Alfonso XIII de España en 1915 para intentar localizar a civiles y soldados apresados y desaparecidos en la I Guerra Mundial y hacer lo posible por mejorar su situación y ponerlos en contacto con sus familias o intentar repatriarlos.

Francisco Flórez, nacido en Murcia y afincado en Madrid hasta su fallecimiento en 1824, fue uno de los constructores de pianos más reputados y afamados de su época. Si bien son muy pocos los datos que se disponen sobre su primera etapa de formación, a partir de 1784, cuando ya aparece instalado en Madrid, es posible reconstruir su trayectoria profesional.