ZURBARAN, thiroebA-riite. FRANCISCO DE (1598-1602). A celebrated Spanish painter of the Andalusian school,-born at Puente de Cantos, Estremadura. A pupil of Juan de las Eoelas at Seville, he also studied diligently from nature and adopted a vigorous realistic style. akin to the ehi aroscuro effects of Caravaggio. Whence he is often styled the Spanish Caravaggio. For the Cathedral of Seville he painted in 1625 a series of "Scenes from the Life of Saint Peter." and soon after executed one of his most celebrated works, the "Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas." now in the Seville Museum, a grand altar-piece. rich and ef fective in coloring, the heads all being admirable studies and the street view in the centre remark able for its atmospheric depth. Called to the Monastery of Guadalupe, lie painted there eleven pictures on the life of Saint Jerome. and after his return to Seville was employed in the Carthusian Monastery of Santa Maria de las Cuevas, in de pitting the three remarkable scenes, now in the Seville Museum, "Saint Bruno Conversing with Pope Urban H.." "Saint Hugo Surprising the Monks at an Unlawful Feast in the Refectory," and "The Virgin Extending Her Mantle Over a Group of Carthusian Monks." For several other convents and churches he painted a number of pictures, the most notable of which is the "Cruci fixion" (1627), in San Pablo, extolled for its wonderful plastic effect. Before 1633 Zurbarfin
was appointed painter to the King. Summoned to the Court of Madrid by Velazquez, in 1650. by desire of Philip IV., Zurbartin was employed to decorate a room in the palace of Buonretiro with the "Labors of Hercules," now in the Madrid Museum, and stood in high favor at Court to the time of his death. Besides his works in the Seville Museum, which are undoubtedly his finest, there may he noted a large "Adoration of the Kings" in the Cathedral of Cadiz; "Two Episodes in the Life of San Pedro Nolasco," and an ex quisite "Infant Jesus Asleep on a Cross," in the Madrid Museum: a kneeling "Franciscan Hold ing a Skull," in the Louvre; "Saint Bonaventnra and Thomas Aquinas." in Berlin: and "Saint Bonaventura Elected Pope," in Dresden. Others are to be found in most of the great galleries of Europe. Zurbaran is especially the painter of monks, whom he depicted with as much relish as did Titian the Venetian noble or Vandyck the English gentleman. Yielding precedence only to Velazquez and Murillo, he in the front rank of Spanish painters. Consult Annals of the Artists of Spain, ii. (London, 1S4S).