Eugenio Oliva and Rodrigo

EUGENIO OLIVA Y RODRIGO (Palencia, 1852 - Villaconejos, Madrid, 1925).
"Fair of Seville".
Oil on panel.
Signed in the lower left corner.
Measurements: 39.5 x 55.5 cm, 67 x 83 cm (frame).

Eugenio Oliva and his brother José began their artistic training in the Municipal School of Drawing of Palencia under the tutelage of Justo María de Velasco, although later they moved to Madrid, where he arrived probably in 1873 to study in the Superior School of Painting, Sculpture and Engraving and to attend the workshop of Germán Hernández Amores. The works he presented at the national exhibitions of 1876 and 1878 did not obtain the desired results, but that same year competitions were held to fill a post as a pensioner for the discipline of "History Painting" at the Special School of Fine Arts in Rome for which he had to perform a first exercise with the theme Moses taken from the Nile and a third and fourth with The Death of Abel. He finally won the second medal at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts in 1884. Back in Madrid, his professional beginnings were complicated, despite his success at the National Exhibition, and he spent some time without work, making copies of great masters Ribera, Velázquez and Murillo in the Prado Museum, with self-taught purpose. The negative trend did not change until Casto Plasencia, commissioned him in 1885 to decorate the chapel of Carlos III under the theme The promulgation of the Dogma of the Immaculate Conception. The prestige of working for San Francisco el Grande opened the doors to other commissions and consolidated his artistic recognition in Spain.