Sebastián Muñoz (c.1654, Casarrubios del Monte - 20 March 1690,

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

) was a Spanish Baroque painter.

Life and work

In 1670, he became an apprentice in the workshop of . By January 1680, he was in Madrid, assisting

Claudio Coello Claudio Coello (2 March 1642 – 20 April 1693) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Coello is considered the last great Spanish painter of the 17th century. The son of Faustino Coello, a famous Portuguese sculptor, he was a court painter for Char ...

with decorations to celebrate the arrival of

Marie Louise d'Orléans es, María Luisa de Orleans e Inglaterra , house = Orléans , birth_date = , birth_place = Palais Royal, Paris, France , death_date = , death_place = Royal Alcázar, Madrid, Spain , burial_place = El Escorial , father ...

, the new wife of King Charles II. He used the money that he earned to go to Italy.

Antonio Palomino Acislo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco (165513 April 1726) was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, and a writer on art, author of ''El Museo pictórico y escala óptica'', which contains a large amount of important biographical mate ...

, ''El museo pictórico y escala óptica III. El parnaso español pintoresco laureado''. Madrid : Aguilar S.A. de Ediciones. . Later that year, he joined with expatriate Spanish painters in petitioning the King to establish a Spanish painting academy in Rome. While there, he apparently studied with

Carlo Maratta Carlo Maratta or Maratti (13 May 162515 December 1713) was an Italian painter, active mostly in Rome, and known principally for his classicizing paintings executed in a Late Baroque Classical manner. Although he is part of the classical tradition ...

. On his return to Spain, he stopped in

Zaragoza Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...

, where he once again served as an assistant to Coello, painting frescoes in the . Back in Madrid, in 1686, he worked at the Royal Alcázar, where he painted the ceiling of the Queen's room with a scene from Orlando Furioso. Only a preparatory sketch has survived.Pérez Sánchez, Alfonso E., ''El dibujo español de los siglos de oro'', Madrid, Sala de exposiciones del palacio de bibliotecas y museos, 1980 Elsewhere in the palace, he created a scene from the mythological story of

Psyche Psyche (''Psyché'' in French) is the Greek term for "soul" (ψυχή). Psyche may also refer to: Psychology * Psyche (psychology), the totality of the human mind, conscious and unconscious * ''Psyche'', an 1846 book about the unconscious by Car ...

and Cupid, which earned him an appointment as

court painter A court painter was an artist who painted for the members of a royal or princely family, sometimes on a fixed salary and on an exclusive basis where the artist was not supposed to undertake other work. Painters were the most common, but the cour ...

. It has since been lost. In 1689, he painted the Queen's funeral for the Convento del Carmen Calzado. It is said that the monks didn't recognize the Queen as portrayed, so Muñoz had to place her portrait in a medallion, supported by angels. At the

Buen Retiro Palace Buen Retiro Palace (Spanish: ''Palacio del Buen Retiro'') in Madrid was a large palace complex designed by the architect Alonso Carbonell (c. 1590–1660) and built on the orders of Philip IV of Spain as a secondary residence and place of recrea ...

, he worked on decorations for the private rooms of the new Queen,

Maria Anna of Neuburg Maria Anna of Neuburg ( es, Mariana; 28 October 1667 – 16 July 1740), was a German princess and member of the Wittelsbach family, who became Queen consort of Spain in 1689 as the second wife of Charles II, last Habsburg King of Spain. Her m ...

, at the same time he began restoring the frescoes in the

cupola In architecture, a cupola () is a relatively small, most often dome-like, tall structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome. The word derives, via Italian, fro ...

at the

Basilica of Nuestra Señora de Atocha The Royal Basilica of Our Lady of Atocha or Real Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Atocha is a large church in central Madrid on Avenida de la Ciudad de Barcelona, 1.https://www.esmadrid.com/informacion-turistica/basilica-de-nuestra-senora-de-at ...

. While occupied with the latter project, he slipped and fell to his death from the scaffolding. A monumental canvas depicting the " Martyrdom of Saint Andrew" was left unfinished at the parish church in his hometown. It was later completed by , who made an effort to preserve Muñoz' style throughout.

References

External links

Biography
@ the Museo del Prado
Digitalized works
@ the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica of the

Biblioteca Nacional de España The Biblioteca Nacional de España (''National Library of Spain'') is a major public library, the largest in Spain, and one of the largest in the world. It is located in Madrid, on the Paseo de Recoletos. History The library was founded by K ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Munoz, Sebastian 1650s births 1690 deaths Spanish painters Fresco painters Deaths from falls People from the Province of Toledo

Life and work

References

Further reading

External links