Antonio Palomino

Acislo Antonio Palomino de Castro y Velasco (1653 – 13 April 1726) was a Spanish painter of the Baroque period, and a writer on art, author of El Museo pictórico y escala óptica, which contains a large amount of important biographical material on Spanish artists.

Antonio Palomino was born to a respectable family at Bujalance, near Córdoba in 1653. He studied philosophy, theology and law at Córdoba, and had lessons in painting from Juan de Valdés Leal, who visited there in 1672, and afterwards from Juan de Alfaro y Gamez in 1675.

After taking minor orders Palomino moved to Madrid in 1678, where he associated with Alfaro, Claudio Coello, and Juan Carreño de Miranda, and executed some indifferent frescoes. He soon afterwards married a lady of rank, and, having been appointed alcalde of the mesta, was himself ennobled; in 1688 he was appointed painter to King Charles II. The artist visited Valencia in 1697, and remained there for three or four years, again devoting himself to fresco painting, including the ceilings of the church of the Santos Juanes. Between 1705 and 1715 he spent considerable amounts of time in Salamanca, Granada and Córdoba; in the latter year the first volume of his work on art, El Museo pictórico y escala óptica, appeared in Madrid. He painted the ceiling fresco in the dome of the sacristy of the Cartuja de Granada. After the death of his wife in 1725 Palomino took priest's orders. He died on 13 August 1726.

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