Circle of JOSE DE RIBERA(Xátiva, Valencia, 1591 - Naples, 1652). Lombard school, 17th century.
"The Taste", within the series, the Five Senses.
Oil on canvas.
Measurements: 81 x 62,5 cm., 86 x 67 cm. (frame).
Restored and relined in 2006.
The Five Senses is a group of five allegories painted on panels using the oil technique by Jan Brueghel the Elder in collaboration with Peter Paul Rubens in the Spanish Netherlands. Rubens was responsible for painting the people and Brueghel for painting the landscape and the objects in the painting. They are currently housed in the Museo del Prado in Madrid. They correspond to the Flemish Baroque period. This series of paintings was commissioned by the governors of the Netherlands, whose paintings later passed into the hands of Philip IV, who placed the paintings in the Alcázar of Madrid. After being rescued from the fire of 1734, they were moved to the now disappeared Buen Retiro Palace and later to the Royal Palace, before finally ending up in the Prado Museum.
Many artists of the time learned of this commission and made their own allegories, as in the case of the painting in question.
A portrait of great naturalism, framed within the Caravaggian Baroque of the Lombard school, depicting a man dressed in a white shirt, earrings in his ears, and an incipient belly, letting the viewer know the purchasing power of the sitter, with a good plate of food, bread and a glass of wine, alluding to a sense of taste, against a neutral, dark background with little prominence, as appears in most of Caravaggio's works.
The Lombard school is a rarity in Italian painting as it does not have the characteristics that unify it with others such as the Roman or Venetian schools. Within this northern school, various sub-schools can be distinguished, centred on the cities of Milan, Genoa, Piedmont, Bologna, Cremona, Modena, Ferrara and Parma. However, the term Lombard school is often identified with the Milanese school.