Pedro de Camprobín

1605 – 1674

Spanish painter. The son of a silversmith, he was apprenticed between 1619 and 1624 to Luis Tristán de Escamilla in Toledo, where he became acquainted with developments in the new genre of still-life. He was examined and certified as maestro pintor in Seville in June 1630, after which his activity there as a painter is documented with regularity. His earliest dated painting and only known religious work is a signed Magdalene (1634; Seville, El Salvador). In 1660, together with Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, Francisco de Herrera the Younger and Juan de Valdés Leal, he was among the founders of the Academia de Bellas Artes. Although he painted religious subjects, he was best known for his still-lifes and was the first Sevillian specialist of note in the field of flower paintings. His floral compositions were extremely popular among local private collectors in his own day and even decorated some religious institutions, such as the series of twelve flower pieces that hung in the chapel of Nuestra Senora de los Dolores in the Seville Church of San Pablo. Camprobín enjoyed a virtual monopoly in this genre in Seville, equivalent to that of Tomás Hiepes in Valencia. A relatively undemanding provincial market and the absence of significant local competition for these artists may help to explain certain retardataire qualities in the paintings of both, as well as pronounced stylistic idiosyncrasies.

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