Gaspar Becerra

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Gaspar Becerra (1520-1570) was a Spanish painter and sculptor.

He was born at Baeza in Andalusia. He studied at Rome, it is said under Michelangelo, and assisted Vasari in painting the hall of the Palazzo della Cancelleria. He also contributed to the anatomical plates of Juan Valverde de Amusco's Historia de la composicion del cuerpo humano (Rome, 1556). After his return to Spain he was extensively employed by Philip II, and decorated many of the rooms in the palace at Madrid with frescoes. He also painted altar-pieces for several of the churches, most of which have been destroyed. His fame as a sculptor almost surpassed that as a painter. His best work was a magnificent figure of the Virgin Mary, which was destroyed during the French war. He became court painter at Madrid in 1563, and played a prominent part in the establishment of the fine arts in Spain.

Among his pupils were Miguel Barboso (b. Consegra, 1538, d. 1590), who worked at Toledo in 1585, and. becoming painter to the king in 1589, painted some frescoes in the Escorial. Also Bartolomé del Rio Bernuís at Toledo in 1607-27, Francisco López at Madrid, and Jerónimo Vázquez at Valladolid.

[edit] External links

• Anatomical drawings by Becerra, from the Royal Academy of Arts
• Historical Anatomies on the Web. US National Library of Medicine. Selected pages scanned from Juan Valverde de Amusco's Anatomia del corpo humano. (Rome, 1560).

[edit] References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.