Jose de Ribera - Jacob's Dream [1639]

Jose de Ribera - Jacob's Dream [1639], a photo by Gandalf's Gallery on Flickr.

Jose de Ribera (baptised Játiva, Spain, February 17, 1591 – Naples, September 2, 1652) was a Spanish painter and etcher who worked in Naples. He was born in Spain but spent most of his life in Italy. Little is known of his life in Spain, though he is said by the painter and biographer Antonio Palomino to have received his first training there under Francisco Ribalta. It is not known when he went to Italy, but there is evidence that as a young man he worked in Parma and Rome. In 1616 he married in Naples, then under Spanish rule, where he remained the rest of his life. In 1626 he signed as a member of the Roman Academy of St. Luke and in 1631 as a knight of the Papal Order of Christ, although he always retained his Spanish identity.

The whole of Ribera’s surviving work appears to belong to the period after he settled in Naples. His large production comprises mainly religious compositions, along with a number of classical and genre subjects and a few portraits. He did much work for the Spanish viceroys, by whom many of his paintings were sent to Spain. He was also employed by the Roman Catholic church and had numerous private patrons of various nationalities. His paintings were widely imitated and copied in Spain. From 1621 onward there are numerous signed, dated, and documented works from Ribera’s hand.

[Oil on canvas, 179 x 233 cm]