RAFAEL XIMENO Y PLANES Valencia (1759) / Mexico City (1825)

Oil on canvas. Signed at the bottom of the oval in which the scene is depicted. New Spanish painter and introducer of Neoclassicism in Mexico. Trained at the Royal Academy of San Carlos in Valencia under the direction of his maternal uncle, the painter Luis Planes, Rafael Ximeno managed to forge a successful career as a painter, draughtsman and illustrator beyond the borders of Valencia. He was sent to study at the Royal Academy of San Fernando in Madrid and obtained a pension from Rome in 1783. In these cities he devoted himself mainly to the study of the works of great masters such as Raphael and Mengs, with an activity focused on the illustration of literary works and the preparation of drawings to be engraved. In Mexico, where he became second director of the School of Fine Arts in 1793, he also practiced fresco painting, and among his most notable works are those for the churches of Jesus Maria and la Profesa, as well as the magnificent Assumption of the Virgin that he represented in the dome of the cathedral. Apart from the paintings mentioned above, the Pinacoteca Virreinal San Diego preserves several canvases by the painter and the Museo Nacional de Arte houses the magnificent Milagro del Pocito, which is among his best works on easel. The work shown here, representing the passage of the Dispute of Jesus with the doctors, presents a chromatic palette and models very similar to those of the last stage of his production on the American continent. The fluidity of the brushstrokes and the painted architectural frame that surrounds it allow us to deduce that it must have been a sketch for a pictorial decoration that would finally be developed on a mural support; possibly, in a Mexican church. Measurements: 64 x 48 cm.