Francisco de Zurbarán

Timeline

1. 1614–1626Llerena · ExtremaduraHis father sent him to Seville, where he studied painting for three years under Pedro Díaz de Villanueva. In 1617 he married María Paet and settled in Llerena, developing solid forms through the tradition of painted wood sculpture and the training of drawing drapery from life. On January 17, 1626, still as a painter of Llerena, he contracted for 21 paintings for the Dominican convent of San Pablo in Seville, his first documented major commission.
2. 1626–1634Seville · AndalusiaThe San Pablo commission (including Christ on the Cross) established his reputation. In August 1628 he signed a further commission for 22 paintings of Peter Nolasco for the Mercedarians. In 1629 the Seville elders formally invited him to move with his family into the city, lest it lose this painter who 'honored the city.' White monastic habits, dark backgrounds, and near-relief sacred figures became his hallmark; the Crucifixion in the Art Institute of Chicago dates from this period.
3. 1634–1640Buen Retiro Palace, Madrid · MadridAround 1634 he was summoned to paint the Labors of Hercules series and the Defense of Cádiz for the Hall of Realms in the Buen Retiro, among his few mythological and historical subjects; legend has it that Philip IV patted his shoulder and said, 'painter of kings, king of painters.' In the late 1630s he completed the Saint Jerome series for Guadalupe and the main altarpiece of the Cartuja de Jerez. The Glory of Saint Thomas Aquinas of 1631 is his largest composition.
4. 1640–1664Seville / Madrid · CastileAfter Seville's taste turned to Murillo's soft, graceful religious painting, commissions for Zurbarán's austere monastic images declined. From the late 1630s his workshop produced large numbers of sacred images and series such as Jacob and His Twelve Sons for Spanish America. He married for the third time in 1644. In 1658 he went to Madrid seeking Velázquez's patronage, and his brushwork softened in his later years. He died in Madrid on August 27, 1664, leaving an estate worth some twenty thousand reales; the story that he died in poverty is untrue.