Valentín Carderera

Valentín Carderera; portrait by Federico de Madrazo
Portrait of Queen Consort
Maria Christina (1831)

Valentín Carderera y Solano (14 February 1796, Huesca - 25 March 1880, Madrid) was a Spanish writer and portrait painter in the Academic style. He was named honorary court painter during the reign of Isabel II.[1]

Biography

He attended the Universidad Sertoriana de Huesca, where he studied philosophy then, thanks to the patronage of José de Palafox, studied drawing in Zaragoza with Buenaventura Salesa (1756-1819) and painting in Madrid, where his teachers were Mariano Salvador Maella and José de Madrazo.[2] In 1822, he won a grant to study in Rome, awarded by José António, Duke of Villahermosa.[1] He remained in Italy until 1831, travelling widely and creating an album of sketches. While there, he also became involved in the study and collecting of antiquities; a subject that had interested him since he was a boy.

He was particularly fond of the engravings of Francisco de Goya and owned a large collection of them. In 1835, he wrote the first substantial biography of Goya, which was published in the journal El Artista.[1]

In 1836, he received a commission to make an inventory of several abandoned monasteries.[2] From 1838, he was a governing member of the board at the Museo Real de Pintura y Escultura. He was also a member of the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, where he taught art history and, from 1847, he held a chair at the Real Academia de la Historia.[1] In 1873, he helped establish the Museo de Huesca by donating pieces from his own collection.[2]

His most familiar works are portraits of famous Spaniards throughout history; gathered together in an large anthology called Iconografía Española (1855, enlarged in 1864), which constitutes his magnum opus.[1] In order to defray the costs of publication, he had to sell his collection of prints to the Biblioteca Nacional.

As a writer, he also contributed regular essays on cultural subjects to España Artística y Monumental, El Liceo Artístico y Literario, El Museo Universal and the French Gazette des Beaux-Arts.[2] In 1866, he edited the first edition of the Discursos practicables del nobilísimo arte de la pintura, written in 1675 by Jusepe Martínez.

Writings

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Brief biography @ the Museo del Prado
  2. 1 2 3 4 Brief biography @ the Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa.

External links

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