COELLO, CLAUDIO, a celebrated Spanish painter, born at Medd( in the earlier half of the 17th century. His father Faustino Cecile who was a Portuguese bronze-worker, wished to bring up his son ti his own business, and him with Francisco Rid to learn to draw Mei however, who soon perceived the great abilitica of young Cecile persuaded his father to allow him to become a painter. By flu instruction of IBA, and by copying a few of the pictures of Titian Ruben., and Vandyck in the palace at Madrid, Coello became a Ter: able painter, and produced several excellent altar-pieces while still witl list lie executed also several works in fresco in company with Josef )onoso, especially on the occasion of the marriage of the king ::harles II., with Maria Louisa of Orldims. In 1650 he was appointed abinet painter to that king In the place of Carrell°, deceased, with a glary of twenty ducats per month.
In consequence of the death of Rid, Coolie was ordered by the :ing to paint the great altarpiece for the sacristy of the Facet-id, iu >lace of one which had been commenced by Rid. The subject was he procession and ceremony of the Collocation of the host on the sitar of tho Sacristy, 'Colocacion do la Santa Forma,' which took dace in 16S1 in the presence of Charles II. and his officers of state: be picture onntaina upwards of fifty portraits, and was completed Coello in about three years, to the utmost satisfaction of the king. It is very large, and contains in the group of persons who form the 'rand procession of the Collocation, the portraits of the king and all ptineipal nobility of his court, executed in the most masterly winner. It is Coello's masterpiece, and ouo of the finest productions
if the Spanish school, combining the design of Cano, the colouring >f Murillo, and the effect of Velazquez. In Cumberland's opinion, Coello's style very much resembles that of Paul Veronese. Coello is 'aid to have died of jealousy and vexation in 1693, in consequence of the arrival of Luca Giordano at Madrid by the invitation of the king to paint in fresco the great staircase and other principal parts of the Escurial. Giordano arrived in May 1692, and Coello died eleven months afterwards, having from the time of Giordano's arrival, with one exception, resolutely adhered to a determination to paint no more.
The 'Martyrdom of St. Stephen,' for the Dominican convent at Sala manca, was the only work that he finished, of all he had on baud, after the arrival of Giordano at Madrid. It is however to be ob-erved that such stories are very common respecting eminent painters, and that they seem to be transferred from one to another with little ceremony. It may very well have happened that Coello's abstinence from painting for the eleven months preceding his death aro-e from illness; and illness rather than mortification seems to us a much more likely explanation of such a course.
There are several altarpieces and frescoes by Cecile, at Madrid, and some at Saragoza and other places.
(Cean Bermudez, Diccionario Historic°, ; Cumberland, Anecdotes of Eminent Painters in Spain.)