Circle of JOSE DE RIBERA (Xátiva, Valencia, 1591 - Naples, 1652). Lombard school, 17th century.
"The Ear", part of the series, The Five Senses.
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 83 x 64,5 cm., 86 x 67 cm. (frame).
Restored and re-coloured in 2006.
High quality copy of the original paintings by José de Ribera that he painted when he was in Rome, an excellent series on the Five Senses.
He has rendered the image in a naturalistic style inspired by Caravaggio, from whom he takes the violent tenebrist lighting and the humble figures. These characteristics are combined with the influence of Flemish art, of which the artist was aware thanks to his close relationship with his neighbours in Via Margutta. The iconography of the image has undergone a major change as Ribera moved away from the elegant and complex visions of the Five Senses painted in the Low Countries, being among the most famous.
A portrait of great naturalism, framed within the Caravaggist Baroque of the Lombard school, following the model of José de Ribera, depicting a man dressed in the typical musician's costume of the period, a lute in his hands, and a score on the table, alluding to the sense of hearing, against a background of a neutral, dark and unobtrusive background.
José de Ribera, known as the Españoleto, was a key master of the Spanish Baroque, and in general of European art history. Although there are no surviving documentary sources or evidence of his youth, it is thought that he trained with Francisco Ribalta in Valencia, after which he went to Italy, first to the north and later to Rome, where he became acquainted at first hand with the classicists and the tenebrism of the Dutch who settled there. He finally settled in Naples, where he arrived in 1616. This was the beginning of his period of maturity and splendour; Ribera enjoyed fame and a large studio, and his works were disseminated throughout Europe through engravings. He worked for viceroys and high-ranking officials of Spanish origin in Naples, and many of his works soon reached Spain. He was in fact famous in his native country, and in fact Velázquez himself visited him in 1630. Works by Ribera are now held in the Prado, the Louvre, Capodimonte, the Fine Arts Museum in Budapest, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Kunsthistorisches and Liechtenstein Museums in Vienna, the J. Paul Getty in Los Angeles, the Art Institute in Chicago, the Metropolitan in New York, the National Gallery and the Royal Collection in London, the Borghese Gallery in Rome and other leading art galleries in Europe, America and Asia.