Domingo Valdivieso

DOMINGO VALDIVIESO YEDEZ (Mazarrón, 1830- Madrid, 1872).
"The daughters of the Cid", 1862.
Oil on canvas.
Presents patches on the back.
Signed and dated in the lower right corner.
Measurements. 155 x 220 cm; 180 x 245 cm (frame).
Scene of historicist character that represents the daughters of the Cid. According to the story of the Cantar de mio Cid, the infantes of Carrión, don Fernán and don Diego -first-born and fourth son of the counts don Gómez and doña Teresa- requested in marriage to the daughters of the Cid, proposal that was accepted. However, after an episode in which Don Rodrigo bravely confronted some lions, the princes were exposed as cowards and felt humiliated. Wounded in their pride, they decided to return to Carrión from Valencia with their wives, and when they reached the mountains of Berlanga, they brutally attacked them and abandoned them to their fate. In this work the author romanticizes this dramatic moment by focusing his interest on the female nude, from an idealized perspective and based on classical canons. In the words of the Prado Museum of Madrid "Between 1862 and 1866 Valdivieso participated successfully in the National Exhibitions, obtaining in 1862 the 3rd class medal for his work ''The daughters of the Cid abandoned by the Counts of Carrion'', a work that would later be acquired by the Duke of Frias. In 1864 he obtained the 2nd class medal for his work ''Descendimiento de la Cruz'', (acquired by the State) and, shortly after, in 1866 he obtained again the 2nd class medal with the work ''Primera comunión de una colegiala'', acquired again by the State".
Domingo Valdivieso y Henarejos (1830-1872) was a Spanish painter and engraver, linked to the academicism of the 19th century. Born in Mazarrón, in the bosom of a military family, he began his training in his native town and later moved to Murcia to attend secondary school. There his talent for drawing became evident, which motivated his tutors to guide him towards an artistic education. His first teacher was the local painter Juan Albacete. At the age of eighteen he moved to Madrid, where he worked in public administration while attending the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando in his free time.
In 1853, he decided to devote himself completely to painting and left his job. During this period he also began to work as a lithographer, making illustrations for military works such as Pedro Chamorro's El Estado Mayor General del Ejército Español and José Ferrer de Couto and José March's Historia de la Real Armada Española. In 1861 he obtained a scholarship from the Diputación de Murcia that allowed him to further his studies in Paris and Rome, where he was influenced by Eduardo Rosales and the Nazarene movement, characterized by an idealized recovery of the religious art of the early Renaissance.
From then on, he participated regularly in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts, winning medals in 1862, 1864 and 1866, the year in which he was appointed professor of anatomical painting at the Academy of San Fernando. In 1871 he received a new distinction at the same exhibition.
His most recognized production is centered on religious themes, although he also painted historical scenes, portraits, mythological compositions and genre paintings set both in Italy and in his native region of Murcia. The largest collection of his works is preserved in the Museum of Fine Arts of Murcia (MUBAM). He died prematurely in Madrid at the age of forty-two, due to a brain inflammation.