Background
Cristovao de Figueiredo was born about 1500 in Portugal.
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- Works
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- Works
painting
Trânsito da virgem
Milagre da Ressurreição do Mancebo
Ecce Homo
Martírio de Santo Hipólito
Deposição no Túmulo
Menino Jesus entre os Doutores
Bênção de Santa Auta em Lisboa
Exaltação da Santa Cruz
Santíssima Trindade
Tríptico da Paixão de Cristo
Cristo deposto da cruz
Martírio de Santo André
Cristovao de Figueiredo
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also known as
Christopher Figueiredo
Education
Cristóvão was a student of the Lisbon workshop, guided by Jorge Afonso, a royal painter of D. Manuel I, where numerous artists passed, some of whom constituted a second generation of painters that would come to great importance.
Career
Cristóvão had a workshop and lived in Lisbon, on Rua da Mangalassa, in the parish of Santa Justa. He was later in Coimbra in 1530, in Lamego in 1533 - 1534, and again in Lisbon from 1538. As a draftsman, he worked for King John III and made sketches of panels that were to be painted by other artists, as may be expected to have happened to those from the altarpiece of the high altar of the Valdigem Church commissioned from the painter Bastião Afonso.
Figueiredo worked as an examiner of painters in 1515. Around 1518 - 1519 he worked for the Lisbon Relation under the leadership of Francisco Henriques, along with André Gonçalves, Gaspar Vaz, Gregório Lopes, Garcia Fernandes, among others, among which seven Flemish painters. Between 1522 and 1533, on the orders of King D. Manuel I, he worked on the painting of the Polyptych of the Monastery of Santa Cruz of the main chapel of the Monastery of Santa Cruz in Coimbra, which was first assigned to him by Teixeira de Carvalho, based on a letter of Gregorio Lourenço, who was the seller of the works of the monastery.
On May 20 of the same year, the king, recommending that some works of the monastery must be finished and others be done, mentioned the painting of the altarpiece. On October 7, 1530, Cristóvão de Figueiredo was in Coimbra, possibly working on the altarpiece, as he signed as a witness in the house of the Council of Santa Cruz a contract between Father Frei Brás, governor of the Monastery, and the French architect Hodart, for the execution of the Passover of Christ.
Of all the paintings in that altarpiece stand out "The Deposition of Christ in the Tomb", "The Invention of the Cross", "Ecce Homo", and "Miracle of the Resurrection of Mancebo." There are several characteristics of those works that lead to suppose that they were carried out in partnership. The altarpiece was removed in the early seventeenth century when it was replaced by the new Mannerist altarpiece by the sculptor Bernardo Coelho and the painters Simão Rodrigues and Domingos Vieira Serrão.
He also worked during the year 1533 in Lamego. On October 31, 1533, he signed, as a witness, a power of attorney that António Lopes, the chamberlain of Bishop Fernando de Meneses Coutinho and Vasconcelos, made Jorge Alvares, the owner of his landlady. That was the earliest known document in which the artist called himself the cardinal's infant painter.
The following month, on November 27, 1533, in the episcopal palace of Lamego, he signed with Fr. Francisco de Vila-Viçosa, guardian of the Monastery of Ferreirim, and according to that had previously been established before the Infant Fernando, a contract for the execution of three altarpieces destined for the church of that Franciscan monastery, according to drawings he had made and other works he had done with his partner Garcia Fernandes.
Of the initial altarpieces destined for the church of Santo António de Ferreirim, only two tablets subsisted initially for the collateral altars, which were distributed by two series, whose conjecture reconstitution was recently rehearsed by Fernando António B. Pereira. One concerned the "Life of the Virgin" and that cycle included the following themes: Annunciation, Nativity, Dormition of the Virgin, and Assumption of the Virgin. The other altarpiece represented themes of the Passion of Christ: Way to Calvary, Crucifixion, Weeping over dead Christ, and Resurrection of Christ.
In the first quarter of 1538, Cristóvão de Figueiredo undertook, before the "Table of Conscience and Orders", finishing the altarpiece of the Infante Santo, which the queen D. Leonor, widow of D. João II, had sent to the Monastery of Batalha. By August 1539 that altarpiece had already been completed. Influenced by the Florentine and Flemish aesthetic currents, he brought to Portuguese painting an unusual opulence. He specialized in the reconstitution of the steps of the Passion, where the faces gained remarkable expressiveness. The artist died in 1543. Many of his paintings are now in the National Museum of Ancient Art in Lisbon and the Machado de Castro Museum in Coimbra.
Achievements
Works
painting
Views
Cristovao de Figueiredo adhered to the artistic traditions of Northern Renaissance.
Connections
Cristóvão was married to Ana Pires, daughter of the royal master of the carpentry works Pero Anes and Beatriz Afonso. They had a son named Pedro de Figueiredo, a young man from the chamber of the infant D. Afonso.
- Spouse:
- Ana Pires
- Son:
- Pedro de Figueiredo
- tutor:
- Jorge Afonso
- colleague:
- Francisco Henriques
- colleague:
- Garcia Fernandez
- colleague:
- Gregório Lopes
