Francisco Camilo

Francisco Camilo (Madrid 1610–Madrid 1671) was a Spanish painter, the son of an Italian immigrant who had settled in Madrid. When his father died, his mother remarried, and Camilo became the stepson of the painter Pedro de las Cuevas.

De las Cuevas brought Camilo up as his own son, teaching him to paint. At the age of 18, Camilo was asked to paint for the high altar of the Jesuits’ house at Madrid an image representing St. Francis Borgia (which was afterwards removed to make way for an altarpiece in plastic).

The Count-Duke of Olivares ordered Camilo to produce a series of paintings of Kings of Spain for the theater of Buenretiro. The Count-Duke also chose Camilo to adorn the western gallery of the palace with 14 frescoes from Ovid's Metamorphoses. Primarily a painter of religious works, Camilo painted for the monasteries of Madrid, Toledo, Alcalá, and Segovia. He painted and draped some of the statuary of Manuel Pereyra.

Works

Scenes from Ovid's Metamorphoses (1641), Alcázar de Madrid, now destroyed San Juan de Dios (1650), Bowes Museum, Barnard Castle, Durham, England Saint Louis of France (1651), Sarasota Museum San Jerónimo azotado por los ángeles (1651), Museo del Prado, Madrid Martyr of Saint Bartholomew (1651), Museo del Prado Adoration of the Kings (Museo de Bellas Artes, Bilba) San Carlos Borromeo y los apestados, the New Cathedral of Salamanca San Pedro consagrando a San Torcuato, Hospital Tavera, Toledo San José con el Niño dormido, Huesca Museum Altarpiece of Santorcaz (Madrid) (1656) Altarpiece of Otero de Herreros (1659), Segovia Altarpiece of the Virgin of Fuencisla (1662), Segovia Conversion of Saint Paul, Provincial Museum, Segovia Muerte de San Pablo Ermitaño, Museo del Prado San Juan Bautista en orla de flores, private collection Asunción de la Virgen (1666), Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg Adoration of the Shepherds, Chazen Museum of Art, Madison, Wisconsin Statuary of Manuel Pereyra Ascension, (1651), Museu Nacional d´Art de Catalunya