{{short description|Spanish painter (1598–1664)}} {{Use dmy dates|date=August 2025}} {{Infobox artist | name = Francisco de Zurbarán | image = Francisco de Zurbarán autoportrait.jpg | caption = Probable self-portrait of Francisco de Zurbarán as Saint Luke, {{c.}} 1635–1640,{{sfn|Bussagli|Reiche|2009|p=95}}{{sfn|Pérez|2004|p=147}} Museo del Prado, Madrid | birth_date = baptized {{birth date|1598|11|7|df=y}} | birth_place = Fuente de Cantos, Extremadura, Crown of Castile | death_date = {{death date and age|1664|8|27|1598|11|7|df=y}} | death_place = Madrid, Crown of Castile | field = Painting | training = | movement = Spanish Baroque <br> Caravaggisti | works = | patrons = Philip IV of Spain <br> Diego Velázquez | awards = }} {{Catholic Counter-Reformation|expanded=art}} '''Francisco de Zurbarán''' ({{IPAc-en|ˌ|z|ʊər|b|ə|ˈ|r|ɑː|n}} {{respell|ZOOR|bə|RAHN}}, {{IPA|es-ES|fɾanˈθisko ðe θuɾβaˈɾan|lang}}; baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664{{sfn|Ressort|Jordan|2003}}) was a Spanish Baroque painter. He is known primarily for his religious paintings depicting monks, nuns, and martyrs, and for his still-lifes. Zurbarán gained the nickname "Spanish Caravaggio", owing to the forceful use of chiaroscuro in which he excelled.
He was the father of the painter Juan de Zurbarán.<ref name="NG">{{Cite web |date=2018 |title=Two new paintings now on display |url=https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/about-us/press-and-media/press-releases/two-new-paintings-now-on-display-at-the-national-gallery |access-date=18 March 2021 |website=National Gallery}}</ref>
==Biography== [[File:Francisco de Zurbarán 058.jpg|thumb|left|1633 portrait of Francisco Zumel, Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando, Madrid]] Zurbarán was born in 1598 in Fuente de Cantos, Extremadura; he was baptized on 7 November of that year.{{sfn|Harris|2005|p=208}}{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1977|p=135}}{{sfn|Baticle|1987|p=53}} His parents were Luis de Zurbarán, a haberdasher, and his wife, Isabel Márquez.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1977|p=135}}{{sfn|Baticle|1987|p=53}} In childhood he set about imitating objects with charcoal.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1056}} In 1614 his father sent him to Seville to apprentice for three years with Pedro Díaz de Villanueva, an artist of whom very little is known.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=13}}
Zurbarán's first marriage, in 1617, was to María Paet who was nine years older. María died in 1624 after the birth of their third child. In 1625 he married again to wealthy widow Beatriz de Morales. On 17 January 1626, Zurbarán signed a contract with the prior of the Dominican monastery San Pablo el Real in Seville, agreeing to produce 21 paintings within eight months.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=16}} Fourteen of the paintings depicted the life of Saint Dominic; the others represented Saint Bonaventura, Saint Thomas Aquinas, and the four Doctors of the Church.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=73}} This commission established Zurbarán as a painter. On 29 August 1628, Zurbarán was commissioned by the Mercedarians of Seville to produce 22 paintings for the cloister in their monastery.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=127}} In 1629, the Elders of Seville invited Zurbarán to relocate permanently to the city, as his paintings had gained such high reputation that he would increase the reputation of Seville. He accepted the invitation and moved to Seville with his wife Beatriz de Morales, the three children from his first marriage, a relative called Isabel de Zurbarán and eight servants. In May 1639 his second wife, Beatriz de Morales, died.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=18}}
Towards 1630 he was appointed painter to Philip IV, and there is a story that on one occasion the sovereign laid his hand on the artist's shoulder, saying "Painter to the king, king of painters".{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1057}} After 1640 his austere, harsh, hard-edged style was unfavorably compared to the sentimental religiosity of Murillo and Zurbarán's reputation declined. Beginning by the late 1630s, Zurbarán's workshop produced many paintings for export to South America.{{sfn|Ressort|Jordan|2003}} ''Jacob and his twelve sons'', a series depicting the patriarch Jacob and his 12 sons, seems to have been aimed at the South America market, but the originals were acquired for Auckland Castle in Bishop Auckland, Co. Durham, England.<ref name="auck_Zurb" />
On 7 February 1644, Zurbarán married a third time with another wealthy widow, Leonor de Torder. It was only in 1658, late in Zurbarán's life, that he moved to Madrid in search of work and renewed his contact with Velázquez.{{sfn|Ressort|Jordan|2003}} Popular myth has Zurbarán dying in poverty, but at his death the value of his estate was about 20,000 ''reales''.{{sfn|Goodwin|2015|p=474}}
==Style== [[File:Francisco de Zurbarán 053.jpg|thumb|left|''Saint Francis in Meditation'', 1639, National Gallery, London]] It is unknown whether Zurbarán had the opportunity to see the paintings of Caravaggio, only that his work features a similar use of chiaroscuro and tenebrism (dramatic lighting). The painter thought by some art historians to have had the greatest influence on his characteristically severe compositions was Juan Sánchez Cotán.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=15}} Polychrome sculpture—which by the time of Zurbarán's apprenticeship had reached a level of sophistication in Seville that surpassed that of the local painters—provided another important stylistic model for the young artist; the work of Juan Martínez Montañés is especially close to Zurbarán's in spirit.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=15}}
He painted his figures directly from nature, and he made great use of the lay-figure in the study of draperies, in which he was particularly proficient. He had a special gift for white draperies; as a consequence, the houses of the white-robed Carthusians are abundant in his paintings. To these rigid methods, Zurbarán is said to have adhered throughout his career, which was prosperous, wholly confined to Spain, and varied by few incidents beyond those of his daily labour. His subjects were mostly severe and ascetic religious vigils, the spirit chastising the flesh into subjection, the compositions often reduced to a single figure. Zurbaran's "incapacity or possibly scorn for narrative" makes the actions depicted in his compositions difficult to interpret without foreknowledge of the subject.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=25}} The style is more reserved and chastened than Caravaggio's, the tone of color often quite bluish. Exceptional effects are attained by the precisely finished foregrounds, massed out largely in light and shade.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1057}} Backgrounds are often featureless and dark. Zurbaran had difficulty painting deep space; when interior or exterior settings are represented, the effect is suggestive of theater backdrops on a shallow stage.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|pp=60–61}} The art historian Julián Gállego suggests that Zurbarán's early training "may have left him with a taste for Mannerist composition ... with the furniture and accessories placed on the slant" in an ambiguous space devoid of unitary perspective.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=36}} The resulting contradictions have been compared to Cubism for the way each object is represented in isolation.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|pp=21, 36}} According to José Camón Aznar, "Zurbarán succeeded in making a grace of his clumsiness".{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=26}}
Zurbarán's late works, such as the ''Saint Francis'' ({{Circa|1658}}–1664; Alte Pinakothek) show the influence of Murillo and Titian in their looser brushwork and softer contrasts.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|pp=20, 67}}
==Artistic legacy== [[File:Francisco de Zurbarán - Still-life with Lemons, Oranges and Rose - WGA26062.jpg|thumb|''Still Life with Lemons, Oranges and a Rose'', 1633, Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, California]] [[File:Francisco de Zurbarán, The Flight into Egypt, late 1630s. Oil on canvas, Seattle Art Museum.jpg|thumb|''The Flight into Egypt'', late 1630s, Seattle Art Museum]] In 1631, he painted the great altarpiece of ''The Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas'', now in the Museum of Fine Arts of Seville; it was executed for the church of the college of that saint.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=82}} This is Zurbarán's largest composition,{{sfn|Mallory|1990|p=116}} containing figures of Christ, the Madonna, various saints, Charles V with knights, and Archbishop Deza (founder of the college) with monks and servitors, all the principal personages being more than life-size.{{sfn|Rossetti|1911|p=1057}} It had been preceded by numerous pictures for the retable of St. Peter in the cathedral of Seville.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|pp=79–80}}
Between 1628 and 1634, he painted four scenes from the life of St. Peter Nolasco for the Principal Monastery of the Calced Mercedarians in Seville.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=74}} In Santa Maria de Guadalupe he painted multiple large pictures, eight of which relate to the history of St. Jerome;{{sfn|Ressort|Jordan|2003}} and in the church of Saint Paul, Seville, a figure of the Crucified Saviour, in grisaille, creating an illusion of marble. In 1639, he completed the paintings of the high altar of the Carthusians in Jerez.{{sfn|Gállego|Gudiol|1987|p=86}} Also in the 1630s he was commissioned to provide canvases representing the Labours of Hercules, the only group of mythological subjects from the hand of Zurbarán, which were installed in the Hall of Realms in Madrid.<ref name="clarkart.edu" /> A fine example of his work is in the National Gallery, London: a whole-length, life-sized figure of a kneeling Saint Francis holding a skull.<ref name="MacKenzie">{{Cite web |last=MacKenzie |date=2018 |title=Write on Art:"Saint Francis" |url=https://artuk.org/discover/stories/write-on-art-saint-francis-in-meditation-by-francisco-de-zurbaran |website=Art UK}}</ref>
In 1835, paintings by Zurbarán were confiscated from monasteries and displayed in the new Museum of Cádiz.{{citation needed|date=August 2020}}
His principal pupils were Bernabé de Ayala, Juan Caro de Tavira, and the Polanco brothers; others included Ignacio de Ries.{{citation needed|date=November 2019}}
Zurbarán was the subject of a major exhibition in 1987 at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, which traveled in 1988 to Galeries nationales du Grand Palais in Paris.{{sfn|Gilbert|1987}} In 2015, the Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum in Madrid presented ''Zurbarán. A New Perspective''.<ref name="muse_Expo" /> In 2026, the National Gallery in London was expected to exhibit ''Zurbarán'', the first major exhibit of his work in the United Kingdom.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Zurbaran {{!}} Exhibitions {{!}} National Gallery, London |url=https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/exhibitions/zurbaran |access-date=2026-03-28 |website=www.nationalgallery.org.uk}}</ref>
==Gallery== <gallery widths="250" heights="250" perrow="4"> File:SantoDomingoenSoriano.jpg|''Santo Domingo en Soriano'', 1626, Santa María Magdalena, Seville<ref name="artehistoria.com" /> File:Francisco de Zurbarán - Christ on the Cross - WGA26051.jpg|''Christ on the Cross'', 1627, Art Institute of Chicago File:San Serapio, por Francisco de Zurbarán.jpg|''Saint Serapion'', 1628, Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut File:The Immaculate Conception - Zurbarán - Prado.jpg|''Immaculate Conception'', 1630, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:Zurbaran.jpg|''The Death of St. Bonaventure'' (''The Body of St. Bonaventure in the Presence of Pope Gregory X and James I of Aragon''), 1629–1630, Louvre Museum, Paris File:San Buenaventura revela el crucifijo a Santo Tomás de Aquino - Zurbaran.jpg|''St. Bonaventure revealing the crucifix to St. Thomas Aquinas'', 1629? destroyed 1945 File:La Virgen niña en éxtasis, por Francisco de Zurbarán.jpg|''The Young Virgin'', 1630, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York File:Francisco de Zurbarán - Santa Casilda.jpg|''Saint Casilda of Toledo'', 1630-1635, Thyssen-Bornemisza Museum, Madrid File:Francisco de Zurbarán 047.jpg|''Saint Margaret as a shepherdess'', 1631 National Gallery, London File:Francisco de Zurbarán 014.jpg|''The Defence of Cádiz against the English'', 1634, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:Hércules lucha con la hidra de Lerna, por Zurbarán.jpg|''Hercules and the Hydra'', 1634, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:Francisco de Zurbarán - Doctor of Law.jpg|''A Doctor of Law'', 1635, Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston File:Santa Isabel de Portugal.jpg|''Saint Elizabeth of Portugal'', c. 1635, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:Zurbarán - El Padre Eterno, 1639-40.jpg|''Eternal Father'', c. 1639–1640 File:Francisco de Zurbarán 046.jpg|''Saint Luke as a Painter before Christ on the Cross'', c. 1635–1640, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:La Anunciación, por Francisco de Zurbarán.jpg|''The Annunciation'', 1637–1639, Museum of Grenoble, France File:Francisco de Zurbarán 049.jpg|''Saint Rufina'', c. 1635–1640, National Gallery of Ireland, Dublin File:Francisco de Zurbarán 006.jpg|''Agnus Dei'', c. 1635–1640, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:Saint François d'Assise - Francisco de Zurbaran (A 115).jpg|''Saint Francis of Assisi'', c. 1631–1640, Museum of Fine Arts of Lyon File:La casa de Nazaret, por Zurbarán.jpg|''Christ and the Virgin in the House at Nazareth'',<br /> c. 1631–1640,<br /> Cleveland Museum of Art File:Francisco de Zurbarán - The Holy Family.jpg|''The Holy Family'', 1659, Szépművészeti Múzeum, Budapest File:Bodegón de recipientes (Zurbarán).jpg|''Still Life with Pots'', c. 1650, Museo del Prado, Madrid File:San Hugo en el Refectorio.jpg|''St Hugh in the Carthusian Refectory'' c. 1655, Museum of Fine Arts of Seville File:Francisco de Zurbarán - St Francis - WGA26075.jpg|''Saint Francis'', c. 1658–1664, Alte Pinakothek, Munich File:Francisco de Zurbarán 056.jpg|''The Virgin Mary as a Child Praying'', c. 1658–1664, Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg File:Zurbarán - San Francisco en oración, 1659.jpg|''Saint Francis in Prayer'', 1659, Museo del Prado, Madrid </gallery>
==References== ===Citations=== <references> <ref name="auck_Zurb">{{Cite web |title=Zurbarán paintings : Art and exhibitions at Auckland Castle |work=The Auckland Project |access-date=20 January 2020 |url=https://www.aucklandproject.org/zurbaran-paintings/ |archive-date=28 July 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200728230018/https://www.aucklandproject.org/zurbaran-paintings/ |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name="muse_Expo">{{Cite web |title=Exposición – Zurbarán. A New Perspective |work=Museo Nacional Thyssen-Bornemisza |access-date=20 January 2020 |url= https://www.museothyssen.org/en/exhibitions/zurbaran-new-perspective }}</ref>
<ref name="clarkart.edu">{{Cite web |title=Hercules as a Symbol of the Spanish Monarchy |work=Splendor, Myth, and Vision: Nudes from the Prado |access-date=20 January 2020 |url=https://www.clarkart.edu/Mini-Sites/Splendor-Myth-and-Vision/Hercules-as-a-Symbol |archive-date=13 December 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171213030939/http://www.clarkart.edu/Mini-Sites/Splendor-Myth-and-Vision/Hercules-as-a-Symbol |url-status=dead }}</ref>
<ref name="artehistoria.com">{{Cite web |title=Santo Domingo in Soriano |work=artehistoria.com |date=2017 |access-date=20 January 2020 |url=https://www.artehistoria.com/es/obra/santo-domingo-en-soriano |language=es |archive-date=6 December 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191206163251/https://www.artehistoria.com/es/obra/santo-domingo-en-soriano |url-status=dead }}</ref> </references>
===Sources=== {{refbegin|2|indent=yes}}
*{{cite book|author-link=Jeannine Baticle|last=Baticle|first= Jeannine|chapter=Francisco de Zurbaran: A Chronological Review|editor-last= Baticle|editor-first= Jeannine|title=Zurbaran|publisher= Metropolitan Museum of Art |date=1987}} *{{cite book|last1=Bussagli|first1=Marco |last2=Reiche|first2=Mattia |title=Baroque & Rococo|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=05d1QToebb4C&pg=PA95|year=2009|publisher=Sterling|location=New York and London|isbn=978-1-4027-5925-3}} *{{cite book|last1=Gállego|first1=Julián |last2=Gudiol|first2=José |title=Zurbarán, 1598–1664|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=j6ILAQAAMAAJ|year=1977|publisher=Secker & Warburg|isbn=9780436172205 }} *{{cite book|last1=Gállego|first1=Julián |last2=Gudiol|first2=José |title=Zurbarán|date=1987|location= London|publisher=Alpine Fine Arts Collection, Ltd|isbn=0-88168-115-6}} *{{cite magazine |url=https://newcriterion.com/issues/1987/12/zurbaran-for-the-most-part |title=Zurbarán, for the most part |first=Creighton |last=Gilbert |date=December 1987 |magazine=The New Criterion|url-access=subscription }} *{{cite book|last=Goodwin|first=Robert |title=Spain: The Centre of the World 1519–1682|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zKb3BwAAQBAJ&pg=PA474|date= 2015|publisher=Bloomsbury |isbn=978-1-4088-4357-4}} *{{cite book|last=Harris|first=Ann Sutherland |title=Seventeenth-century Art and Architecture|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Xd0CuzsPYJcC&pg=PA208|year=2005|publisher=Laurence King |isbn=978-1-85669-415-5}} *{{cite book|last=Mallory|first=Nina A. |title=El Greco to Murillo: Spanish Painting in the Golden Age, 1556–1700|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=0tnqAAAAMAAJ|year=1990|publisher=Harper & Row|isbn=978-0-06-435531-5}} * {{cite book|last=Pérez|first=Javier Portús |title=The Spanish Portrait: From El Greco to Picasso|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jibrAAAAMAAJ|year=2004|publisher=Museo Nacional del Prado|isbn=978-1-85759-374-7}} *{{citation|last1=Ressort|first1 =Claudie|last2=Jordan|first2= William B.|title= Zurbarán, de family|work =Grove Art Online|doi=10.1093/gao/9781884446054.article.T093699|date=2003|isbn =9781884446054}} * {{EB1911|wstitle=Zurbaran, Francisco|volume=28|pages=1056–1057|first=William Michael|last=Rossetti|author-link=William Michael Rossetti}} {{refend}}
==External links== {{commons}} *[http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15324coll10/id/63943/rec/406''Zurbarán''], an exhibition catalog from The Metropolitan Museum of Art (fully available online as PDF)
{{Francisco de Zurbarán|state=expanded}} {{Caravaggisti}} {{Counter-Reformation footer}} {{Authority control (arts)|country=ES}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zurbaran, Francisco De}} Category:Francisco de Zurbarán Category:1598 births Category:1664 deaths Category:People from Tentudía Category:Spanish Baroque painters Category:Spanish Roman Catholics Category:Painters from Extremadura Category:17th-century Spanish painters Category:Spanish male painters Category:Spanish still life painters Category:Caravaggisti Category:Catholic painters