Last year my wife and I were wandering around the backstreets of Salamanca when we were confronted by a minor miracle. The iron gates of the convent of the Agustinas Descalzas — generally chained and padlocked — were ajar. Quickly we slipped through before they closed again.
Inside was a vast 17th-century church, slightly dusty and completely deserted. On the high altar and the walls of the transepts were paintings by Jusepe de Ribera, a great master who is today half-forgotten. His art has seemed perhaps too gory, too dark — in short, too Catholic — to appeal to British tastes. But that may be about to change: next week, a Ribera exhibition opens at Dulwich Picture Gallery, the first ever seen in this country. In an age that adores the art of Caravaggio, Ribera might well be a hit.
That evening in Salamanca I was particularly struck by a picture of San Gennaro, or Januarius, patron saint of Naples, in glory. He was sailing on a shallow cloud, wearing full bishop’s regalia, and flanked by a cohort of cherubim. Below was Vesuvius smoking in the background.
Salamanca, in fact, was a surprising place to come across Ribera (indeed the pictures there had been dispatched across the Mediterranean). Although he is generally described as ‘Spanish’, and added the word ‘espanol’ to his signature, Ribera (1591–1652) was, for almost all his career, based in southern Italy. It therefore makes more sense to think of him as a citizen of the long-vanished Kingdom of Naples. But because this was then ruled by Spain, the Spanish Viceroys (one of whom commissioned the altarpieces for Salamanca) were among Ribera’s most important patrons.
He was born in the province of Valencia, but moved to Italy when very young.
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