Valentín Carderera
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 a 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
- Catálogo y descripción sumaria de retratos antiguos... coleccionados por D. Valentin Carderera y Solano, M. Tello, 1877.
- Iconografía española : Colección de retratos, estaluas, mausoleos y demás monumentos inéditos de reyes, reinas, grandes capitanes, escritores, etc. desde el siglo XI hasta el XVII, copiados de los originales por... Valentin Carderera y Solano... con texto biográfico y descriptivo, en español y francés, in two volumes, R. Campuzano, 1855-1864.
- Informe sobre los retratos de Cristobal Colon, su trage y escudo de armas. Leído á la real Academia de la historia, por su autor Don Valentin Carderera. Imprenta de la Real Academia de la Historia, 1851 Full text online @ Google Books.
References
- ^ a b c d e Brief biography @ the Museo del Prado
- ^ a b c d Brief biography @ the Gran Enciclopedia Aragonesa.
External links
- More works by Carderera @ the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica
