Pablo de Cespedes Sold at Auction Prices

Pablo de Céspedes (Córdoba, 1540 - 1608)

Pablo de Céspedes (Cordoba, 1540 - 1608)  "Saint Sebastian"  Oil on canvas. Signed on the back and dated 16??.  94,5 x 74,5 cm.  Renaissance painter, sculptor, architect, writer of treatises on art and a poet.  He was one of the most interesting characters of the Andalusian humanism movement of the 16th century.   He trained in Humanities at the University of Alcalá de Henares, later travelling to Rome, where he trained as a painter alongside Volterra, Zuccaro and Arbasia.  He was a great admirer of  Corregio.  In 1577, he took possession of a canonry at Cordoba Cathedral, which led him to settle in the city and introduce a taste for Michaelangelo.  In 1583 he returned to Rome for two years, to later return to Cordoba in 1585.  In his city of birth, he continued with his artistic and humanist life, frequenting social gatherings and socialising with prominent personalities within the field of the arts of the period.  Among other important work, he painted the altarpiece of the Last Supper which is kept at the Cordoba Mosque, the altarpiece of the chapel of Saint Anne, the full-sized figures of Saint Paul and Saint Thomas for the Convent of Santa María de Gracia, as well as different paintings which are kept in Seville Cathedral.   Highlights of his work outside Spain, among many other works, include the frescoes in the Chapel of the Annunciation at the church of Trinità dei Monti in Rome.  “The martyrdom of Saint Stephen” at the Louvre, and the two paintings kept in the Hermitage Museum in Saint Petersburg.