Background
Jusepe de Ribera was born on January 12, 1591 in Xàtiva, Spain, and was baptized on February 17, 1591. He was a son of Simón Ribera, a shoemaker, and Margarita Cucó.
Jusepe de Ribera was born on January 12, 1591 in Xàtiva, Spain, and was baptized on February 17, 1591. He was a son of Simón Ribera, a shoemaker, and Margarita Cucó.
Jusepe's parents wanted him to follow a literary or learned career, but he didn't like it and went to study art under the guidance of Francesco Ribalta in Valencia. Some time later, he left for Rome, where he studied the works of old masters.
In his early twenties, Ribera went to Italy and lived and worked in Naples from 1616 until his last days. The whole of Ribera’s surviving work appears to belong to the period after he settled in Naples. His large production comprises mainly religious compositions, along with a number of classical and genre subjects and a few portraits. Also, Jusepe did much work for the Spanish viceroys, by whom many of his paintings were sent to Spain. He was also employed by the Roman Catholic Church and had numerous private patrons of various nationalities.
The 1630's and early 1640's were wonderfully successful for Ribera: he was made a knight of the Order of Christ of Portugal, Spain's star painter Velázquez came to Naples with the sole purpose of acquiring Ribera's paintings for the pleasure of the monarch and Ribera was earning enough money to move his family into a palatial estate and establish a thriving painter's workshop.
In the mid-1640's, the painter's fortunes took a tragic turn — Ribera fell seriously ill and was unable to work for a significant period of time. Even worse, a populist uprising against Spanish rule in 1647 forced Ribera and his family to take refuge in the Spanish viceroy's palace, and while the Ribera family escaped unharmed, Spain's brutal repression of the uprising damaged his relations with many prominent Neapolitans, resulting in fewer commissions.
Continuing down this slippery slope, Ribera had a relapse of his illness in 1649 and his already shaky financial situation was made even worse, when his eldest daughter had to move back home after the death of her husband only a few years after their wedding. Ribera even petitioned the King to ask for financial assistance due to money lost during the uprising, as well as for compensation for the loss of his son-in-law. But the painter died in 1652 in near-poverty before he received the King's reply.
Throughout all his artistic career, Jusepe produced paintings, which are austere or gloomy in mood and can be rather dramatic in their presentation. The chief elements of Ribera’s style, tenebrism (dramatic use of light and shadow) and naturalism, are used to emphasize the mental and physical suffering of penitent or martyred saints or tortured gods. Realistic detail, often horrific, is accentuated by means of coarse brush marks on thick pigment to represent wrinkles, beards and flesh wounds. Jusepe's technique is characterized by sensitivity of outline and the sureness with which he rendered the changes from brilliant light to darkest shadow.
In addition to paintings, Ribera produced numerous drawings and his etchings were among the finest works produced in Italy and Spain during the Baroque period.
Jose de Ribera gained prominence as a leading painter of the Spanish school, despite the fact, that his mature works were produced in Italy. His most famous works include "St. Agnes in Prison", "Saint Januarius Emerging from the Furnace", "Descent from the Cross", "Adoration of the Shepherds", "Martyrdom of Saint Bartholomew" and others.
In 1631, the painter was made a knight of the Order of Christ of Portugal.
Also, his works are kept in the collections of numerous art institutions, museums and galleries, including the Art Institute of Chicago, the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg, the Louvre Museum in Paris, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, the Prado Museum in Madrid, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam and others.
The Holy Family
St. Peter Freed by an Angel
St. Agnes in Prison
St. Bartholomew
Vision of St. Francis of Assisi
St. Peter
Portrait of a Jesuit missionary
Baptism of Jesus
Immaculate Conception
Saint Сhristopher
Archimedes
Venus und Adonis
St. Jerome Hears the Last Trumpet
Ecce Homo
The Assumption of Mary Magdalene
Apostle James the Minor
Landscape with Shepherds
Adoration of the Shepherds
Allegory of Taste
St. Thomas
Apollo and Marsyas
Head of an Old Man
Blind Old Beggar
St. Onuphrius
St. Jerome and the Angel
Moses
St. Matthew with the angel
Saint Paul
Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew
The Clubfooted boy
St. Jerome
Portrait of a Knight of the Order of Santiago
Diogenes
Madonna with the Christ Child and Saint Bruno
St. Andrew
St. Simon
Christ in the Crown of Thorns
St. Mary of Egypt
St. John the Baptist in the Wilderness
Saint Sebastian Attended by Saint Irene
Descent from the Cross
The Penitent Magdalen (Vanitas)
St. Paul the Hermit
St. Jerome penitente
The Duel of Women (The Duel of Isabella de Carazzi and Diambra de Pettinella)
Mater Dolorosa
Allegory of Sight
The Deliverence of St. Peter from Prison
St. Sebastian
Portrait of an Old Man with an Onion
The drinker
St. Jerome and the Trumpet of Doom
Communion of the Apostles
The Holy Family with St. Catherine
The Lamentation
Allegory of Touch
Girl with Tambourine
St. Andrew
Saint Peter
Holy Family with St. Bruno, the Carthusian monks, saints who left St. Bernard of Siena, St. Bonaventure and St. Elias
Jacob with the Flock of Laban
St. Sebastian
St. Mary of Egypt
Ixion
St. Bruno, the Carthusian
St. Jerome
Drunken Silenus
St. Andrew
Jacob's Dream
St. Mary Magdalene or St. Thais in the Desert
St. Paul the Hermit
Adoration of the Shepherds
Saint Elias
The Martyrdom of St. Andrew
St. Roch
Magdalena Ventura with Her Husband and Son
The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew
The Old Usurer
The Deposition
The Martyrdom of St. Philip
Flagellation of Christ
Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew
St. Philip
The Martyrdom of St. Bartholomew
The Trinity
St. Jerome and the Angel of Judgement
St. Francis of Assisi
Saint Peter and Saint Paul
St. Sebastian Tended by the Holy Women
Crucifixion
John of Austria the Younger
Martyrdom of Saint Lawrence
Saint Simeon with the Christ child
Isaac Blessing Jacob
In November 1616, Ribera married Caterina Azzolino, who was a daughter of a Sicilian-born Neapolitan painter, Giovanni Bernardino Azzolino. Their marriage produced seven children.
