Luca Giordano was an Italian late-Baroque painter and printmaker in etching. Fluent and decorative, he worked successfully in Naples, Rome, Florence, and Venice, before spending a decade in Spain.
The Prado Museum, officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from the 12th century to the early 20th century, based on the former Spanish royal collection, and the single best collection of Spanish art. Founded as a museum of paintings and sculpture in 1819, it also contains important collections of other types of works. The Prado Museum is one of the most visited sites in the world and is considered one of the greatest art museums in the world. The numerous works by Francisco Goya, the single most extensively represented artist, as well as by Hieronymus Bosch, El Greco, Peter Paul Rubens, Titian, and Diego Velázquez, are some of the highlights of the collection. Velázquez and his keen eye and sensibility were also responsible for bringing much of the museum's fine collection of Italian masters to Spain, now one of the largest outside Italy.
Aniello Falcone was an Italian Baroque painter, active in Naples and noted for his painted depictions of battle scenes. Some sources refer to him as Ancillo Falcone.
Jusepe de Ribera was a painter and printmaker, who along with Francisco de Zurbarán, Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, and the singular Diego Velázquez, are regarded as the major artists of Spanish Baroque painting. Referring to a series of Ribera exhibitions held in the late 20th century, Philippe de Montebello wrote "If Ribera's status as the undisputed protagonist of Neapolitan painting had ever been in doubt, it was not longer. Indeed, to many it seemed that Ribera emerged from these exhibitions as not simply the greatest Neapolitan artist of his age but one of the outstanding European masters of the seventeenth century." Jusepe de Ribera has also been referred to as José de Ribera, Josep de Ribera, and Lo Spagnoletto by his contemporaries, early historians, and biographers.
The Buen Retiro Park, Retiro Park or simply El Retiro is one of the largest parks of the city of Madrid, Spain. The park belonged to the Spanish Monarchy until the late 19th century, when it became a public park.
The Paseo del Prado is one of the main boulevards in Madrid, Spain. It runs north–south between the Plaza de Cibeles and the Plaza del Emperador Carlos V, with the Plaza de Cánovas del Castillo lying approximately in the middle. The Paseo del Prado forms the southern end of the city's central axis. It enjoys the status of Bien de Interés Cultural (BIC), and as part of a combined UNESCO World Heritage Site with Buen Retiro Park.
Francesc Ribalta , also known as Francisco Ribaltá or de Ribalta, was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, mostly of religious subjects.
Bartolomeo Cavarozzi (1587–1625), occasionally referred to as Bartolomeo Crescenzi, was an Italian caravaggisti painter of the Baroque period. Cavarozzi's work begin receiving increased admiration and appreciation from art historians in the last few decades of the 20th century, emerging as one of the more distinct and original followers of Caravaggio. He received training from Giovanni Battista Crescenzi in Rome and later traveled to Spain alongside his master for a few years where he achieved some renown and was significant in spreading "Caravaggism" to Spain before returning to Italy. His surviving works are predominantly Biblical subjects and still-life paintings, although older references note he "was esteemed a good painter especially of portraits".
Buen Retiro Palace in Madrid was a large palace complex designed by the architect Alonso Carbonell and built on the orders of Philip IV of Spain as a secondary residence and place of recreation. It was built in what was then the eastern limits of the city of Madrid. Today, what little remains of its buildings and gardens forms the Retiro Park.
Antonio de Pereda y Salgado was a Spanish Baroque-era painter, best known for his still lifes.
The Casón del Buen Retiro is an annex of the Museo del Prado complex in Madrid. Following major restoration work, which was completed in October 2007, it now houses the museum's study centre and library.
The Jester Named Don John of Austria is a portrait by Velázquez, now in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. Its subject was a jester or bufón at the court of Philip IV of Spain from 1624 to 1654 who appeared in court comedies in front of important court figures. The subject's real name is unknown, but he came to be nicknamed after John of Austria, the son of Charles V, well known for his victory at Lepanto. He is shown dressed in a general's cloak and black doublet, is surrounded by abandoned helmets, armour and weapons, and with a fragment of a battle-scene of Lepanto in the background.
Portrait of Pablo de Valladolid is a portrait painted around 1635 by Diego Velázquez of Pablo or "Pablillos" de Valladolid (1587–1648), a jester and actor at Philip IV's court from 1632 until his death. It is now in the Museo del Prado, to which it was moved in 1827.
The Salón de Reinos or salón grande is a 17th-century building in Madrid, originally a wing of the Buen Retiro Palace. The Salón de Reinos and the Casón del Buen Retiro are the only survivors of the original grand scheme of the palace. Built between 1630 and 1635, the Hall of Realms housed the largest paintings in the royal collection, now all in the Museo del Prado. It is named after its paintings of the coats of arms of the 24 kingdoms which formed the Kingdom of Spain at the time of Philip IV of Spain.
The Birth of Saint John the Baptist, by Artemisia Gentileschi, was part of a six-painting portrayal of Saint John's life, with four of the paintings by Massimo Stanzione and one by Paolo Finoglia, for the Hermitage of San Juan Bautista on the grounds of Buen Rierto in Madrid, under orders from the Viceroy of Naples, the Conde de Monterrey. Although a date has not been agreed upon by scholars, Artemesia most likely painted The Birth of Saint John the Baptist between 1633 and 1635. It is one of the most renowned works from Artemisia's Naples period, especially due to its detailed rendering of fabrics and floor tiles.
Tityos is a 1632 painting, signed and dated by Jusepe de Ribera and showing the torture inflicted on the giant Tityos. It was part of a series of four paintings - the other three showed the tortures of Sisyphus, Tantalus and Ixion, but only those of Tityos and Ixion still survive, both now in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
Ixion is a 1632 oil painting, signed and dated by Jusepe de Ribera. It shows a scene from Classical mythology, of Ixion being tortured as the eternal punishment meted out by Zeus. It is one of a series of four paintings by Ribera of the four "Furies" or "Condemned" from Greek mythology. It is held by the Museo del Prado in Madrid, along with Ribera's painting of Tityos; the other two, of Sisyphus and Tantalus, are lost.
Isaac and Jacob is an oil on canvas painting by Jusepe de Ribera, executed in 1637, which since 1918 has been in the Prado Museum in Madrid.
The Spanish royal collection of art was almost entirely built up by the monarchs of the Habsburg family who ruled Spain from 1516 to 1700, and then the Bourbons. They included a number of kings with a serious interest in the arts, who were patrons of a series of major artists: Charles V and Philip II were patrons of Titian, Philip IV appointed Velázquez as court painter, and Goya had a similar role at the court of Charles IV.
Landscape with Sea and Mountain is an oil on canvas painting by Flemish painter Joos de Momper. It was painted in the early 1620s, and is currently housed at the Museum of Prado in Madrid.
