The Picture Merchant

genre

Palomino describes Antolínez as a colourful, although not very likeable character, as vain as he was talented. Perhaps for this reason, he was an outsider to the established art world and received only a few church commissions. He was thus compelled to earn a living from devotional paintings, especially of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception.

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About the Artist

José Antolinez

1635 – 1675

Spanish painter active in Madrid, where he was the equivalent of Murillo in Seville. In his genre scenes the influence of Velázquez, as well as that of Murillo, is evident - e.g. The Picture Seller (Munich) - but his style derives from the Venetians and from Rubens. He specialized in the typically Spanish subject of the Immaculate Conception, of which at least twenty-five versions by him are known. He also painted portraits. There are works in Amsterdam, Barnard Castle (Bowes Museum), Copenhagen, Dublin, Madrid, Oxford (Ashmolean) and Seville.

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