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 :. | Hl. Maria von agypten | St Jerome | Verklarung der Hl. Maria Magdalena | Hl. Elias | Der Tastsinn |
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Thomas Hosmer Shepherd
(1793-1864), British printmaker and painter
e. j. f. bendemann
Eduard Julius Friedrich Bendemann (3 December 1811, Berlin - 27 December 1889, Dusseldorf) was a German painter. Bendemann was born in Berlin. His father, Anton Heinrich Bendemann, a Jewish banker, monitored his education closely; it was one that would have naturally led him to some sort of technical occupation, but his talent and propensity towards art resulted in his being allowed to pursue other interests. His mother Fanny Eleonore Bendemann nee von Halle, also a daughter of the Jewish banker Joel Samuel von Halle. After he completed elementary school he enrolled in the Wilhelm von Schadow's School in Dusseldorf. In 1830 he went on a school trip to Italy. After a series of jobs, among them with Boas and Ruth, his talent as an artist began to show, especially with his very large 1832 painting titled, The Sad Jews of Babylon which was featured in the Berlin art exhibition. The picture garnered a great deal of attention, which was in part due to the deep and simple feeling and the noble composition of the piece (museum in Cologne). Bendemanns second picture: The Two Girls at the Well (1832), was acquired by the North Rhine-Westphalia art association. Soon thereafter followed Jeremias on the Ruins of Jerusalem for which the artist received a medal in Paris in 1837. This painting was for the most part about the progress of the Jews in Babylon. (Royal Palace in Hanover). His best known work is The Harvest. The artist's first fresco was a symbolic representation of the art at the Poetry Well at the house of his parents-in-law in Berlin. In the year 1838 he was appointed professor of the academy of arts in Dresden, where he had the opportunity to paint even larger frescos. Bendemann was given the task to decorate three halls of the Dresden royal palace, the throne room, the tower room, and the tower hall with wall paintings. In the throne room, on both sides of the throne, there are representations of important rulers and legislators in gold leaf with smaller representations in relief form below, from Moses up to Albrecht III, the King at the time. On the wall facing the throne there are four paintings depicting events from the life of King Heinrich I each with other pictures attached which explain each of the four events. Bendemann died in Dusseldorf.
Neeffs, Peter the Elder
Flemish, Approx. 1578-1661