Antonio de Pereda Y Salgato
(1611 - 1678) |
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Secular Narratives, Still Life, Portraiture Art Work
| Name: |
Antonio de Pereda Y Salgato |
| Gender: |
Male |
| Place of Birth: |
Valladolid |
| Nationality: |
Spanish |
| Birth: |
1611 |
| Death: |
1678 |
| Website: |
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| Past Auctions: |
Click Here |
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Quick Facts
| Known For: |
Secular Narratives, Still Life, Portraiture |
| Medium: |
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| Method: |
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| Style: |
Baroque |
| Fine Art Profession(s): |
Painting
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Biography
| Overshadowed by the presence of Velazquez in Madrid, Antonio de Pereda was one of his rivals, working in a manner more Netherlandish in feeling and more prosaic in approach. De Pereda certainly lacked Velazquez's genius but his work is more than competent, his skill at portraiture far from inconsequential, and his narrative style is clear, if conventional. De Pereda was born in Valladolid to an artistic family (his mother, father, and two brothers were painters). He probably trained with his father (who died when Antonio was eleven) and then moved to Madrid in 1622 to become a pupil of Pedro de las Cuevas (ca. 1583-1644). Antonio soon gained the attention of the court's architect, Giovanni Battista Crescenzi, also a still-life painter who must have admired de Pereda's facility in rendering natural objects, as exemplified by de Pereda's Still Life of Walnuts (signed and dated 1634, private collection). Under Crescenzi's protection, de Pereda perfected his technique and gained access to royal patronage. In 1635 de Pereda had the distinct honor of being selected at the very young age of twenty-four to participate (with Vincencio Carducho, Velazquez, and Zurbaran, among others) on the decorations for the royal salon of the Buen Retiro palace. De Pereda's Relief of Genoa (Madrid, Prado) was regarded as one of the best in the series. That commission, however, reflects his only courtly patronage. Crescenzi died during de Pereda's work on the picture, and thereafter he had to seek employment outside the court. Several other surviving pictures can be dated to de Pereda's association with Crescenzi, including the marvelous Undeceiving of the World (sometimes merely called Manilas; Vienna, Kunsthistorisches Museum). This elegant and superbly painted allegory on the vanity of worldly things clearly establishes de Pereda as a talented and original adapter of Italianate sources into a personal idiom. It also shows him to be to be a still-life painter on the level of Pieter Claesz or Wulem Clasesz Heda. De Pereda found work supplying altarpieces and decorations for the churches, convents, and monasteries in and around Madrid. In 1640 he completed St. Augustine and St. Theresa at the Feet of the Virgin and St. Joseph (Toledo, Carmelite Convent); for the Capuchins at Valladolid he produced The Marriage of the Virgin (dated 1643, Paris, St. Sulpice). Adapting to changes in taste, he produced The Profession of Sor Ana Margarita to St. Augustine (Madrid, Convento de la Encarnaci6n), where his realism is adapted to a more decorative overall schema. Two other pictures that can be dated to this period are splendid affirmations of the artist's skill. His St. Jerome and the Trumpet of the Last Judgement (dated 1643, Madrid, Prado) and St. Peter Liberated by an Angel (Madrid, Prado) achieve their expressiveness through his mastery at describing in detail all the objects in the pictures as well as their aged, careworn saints. Always at his best as a describer of natural objects and people, de Pereda made wonderful smaller-scale pictures consisting of religious subjects, moral allegories, and still-lifes (for which a regular market existed). His pair of still lifes (both dated 1652, St. Petersburg, Hermitage; Moscow, Pushkin Museum of Fine Art) are regarded as a high point in his career, showing his abandonment of the austere formalism of earlier still-life painters in favor of a more casual, seemingly random arrangement of forms, as well as a virtuoso assembly of brilliantly described textures. De Pereda continued to combine narrative and still lifes in his own inimitable fashion, blending grace and luminosity in his presentation of a moral message. Among them, Dream of a Young Nobleman (Madrid, Museo de la Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando), with its affinity for Dutch realism, stands out as a particularly fine example. His late style represents a rather half-hearted attempt at adopting a more forceful compositional style but his first love, a delicacy of execution, gives these later works their idiosyncratic quality. |
Samples of Work
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