Rafael Monleón y Torres (1843 – 24 November 1900) was a Spanish artist (painting, engraving, ceramics), archaeologist, historian and naval pilot.

Biography

British ships in the Seven Years War before Havana

He was born in

Valencia Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the Autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Valencian Community, Valencia and the Municipalities of Spain, third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is ...

. His father was the architect, , a professor at the

Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Carlos de Valencia (Spanish for ''Saint Charles Royal Academy of Fine Arts of Valencia'') has been a Spanish Art school in Valencia since 1768. History The institution is deemed to be the follow-on instit ...

.Brief biography
@ the Museo del Prado. After studying there from 1855 to 1866, he joined the merchant marine and became a pilot; sailing around Europe. Later, he was a student of the marine artist

Paul Jean Clays Paul Jean Clays (27 November 1819 – 10 February 1900) was a Belgian artist known for his marine paintings. Biography In 1851 he made his debut at the Paris Salon and, while he tried to stay in the mainstream, his art was heralded by those ...

Bruges Bruges ( , nl, Brugge ) is the capital and largest City status in Belgium, city of the Provinces of Belgium, province of West Flanders in the Flemish Region of Belgium, in the northwest of the country, and the sixth-largest city of the countr ...

, where he also studied engraving. Upon his return to Spain, he completed his studies with

Carlos de Haes Carlos Sebastián Pedro Hubert de Haes (January 25, 1829 – June 17, 1898) was a Spanish painter from Belgium.Caso, E. F., ''Les Orientalistes de l'école Espagnole,'' ACR edition, 1997, p. 128 He was noted for the Realism in his landscapes, a ...

. At first, he was primarily a painter of

azulejo ''Azulejo'' (, ; from the Arabic ''al- zillīj'', ) is a form of Spanish and Portuguese painted tin-glazed ceramic tilework. ''Azulejos'' are found on the interior and exterior of churches, palaces, ordinary houses, schools, and nowadays, r ...

s, and his experience as a sailor gave him a particular talent for

marine art Marine art or maritime art is a form of figurative art (that is, painting, drawing, printmaking and sculpture) that portrays or draws its main Sea in culture, inspiration from the sea. Maritime painting is a genre that depicts ships and the sea� ...

. He focused on shipwrecks and other dramatic scenes, but he was also knowledgeable in regards to naval archaeology and history; which he was able to take advantage of when he was named the conservator/restorer for the

Museo Naval de Madrid The Naval Museum ( es, Museo Naval) is a national museum in Madrid, Spain. It shows the history of the Spanish Navy since the Catholic Monarchs, in the 15th century, up to the present. The displays set naval history in a wide context with informat ...

in 1870. His most ambitious work was never published during his lifetime: the treatise on the ''Historia gráfica de la navegación y de las construcciones navales en todos los tiempos y en todos los países'' (Graphic History of Navigation and Naval Construction...). It was illustrated with over a thousand drawings, blue prints and watercolors; completed while he was at the museum, together with hundreds of texts and vignettes on every known type of ship, European and Oriental. A small excerpt was later published as ''La Construcción Naval española en la obra de Rafael Monleón Torres''. He participated in every National Exhibition of Fine Arts after 1864, except for 1892, owing to his involvement in the celebrations for the four-hundredth anniversary of the "Discovery of America", which included an elaborate scale model of the '' Santa María'' being made as a gift to the United States.Brief biography
@ MCN Biografías. As a result, he was awarded a second-class Cross of Naval Merit and the title of Commander in the

Order of Charles III The Royal and Distinguished Spanish Order of Charles III, originally Royal and Much Distinguished Order of Charles III ( es, Real y Distinguida Orden Española de Carlos III, originally es, Real y Muy Distinguida Orden de Carlos III) was establ ...

. As an engraver, he provided illustrations on marine topics for ''

La Ilustración Española y Americana ''La Ilustración Española y Americana'' was a weekly Spanish magazine that was published from 1869 to 1921 on the 8th, 15th, 22nd and 30th of every month. It was also published biweekly. History The magazine was a continuation of ''El Museo Un ...

'', ' and other periodicals. He also created ceramics, some of which have been preserved at the

González Martí National Museum of Ceramics and Decorative Arts The National Museum of Ceramics and Decorative Arts "González Martí" ( es, Museo Nacional de Cerámica y de las Artes Suntuarias González Martí), located in Valencia, Spain, is a museum dedicated to ceramics (with special importance to Valenci ...

. As a designer, he created his own office furniture. He died in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...

, aged 57.

References

External links

"Rafael Monleón: el Pintor del Mar y su Historia
by Maria Jesús Piqueras Gomez from ''Ars longa: cuadernos de arte'', 1991, No. 2: 49–52, digitalized @ Roderic.
ArtNet: More works by Monleón.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Monleon, Rafael 1843 births 1900 deaths 19th-century Spanish painters 19th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male painters Spanish marine artists Spanish engravers Spanish illustrators Naval historians People from Valencia 19th-century archaeologists

Biography

References

Further reading

External links