Vicente L?pez y Porta?a

(b Valencia, 19 Sept 1772; d Madrid, 22 April 1850). Spanish painter. At the age of 13 he entered the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de S Carlos in Valencia where he was initially a pupil of Antonio de Villanueva (1714-85). In 1789 he won prizes for Tobias Restoring his Father's Sight (Valencia, Mus. B.A.), among other paintings, and the grant of a scholarship to the Academia San Fernando in Madrid. His period there coincided with the ascendancy of the followers of Anton Raphael Mengs, and he was particularly influenced by Gregorio Ferro and Mariano Salvador Maella. In 1790 he returned to Valencia where he subsequently became vice-director of painting at the Academia. He married and had two sons, Bernardo (1800-74) and Luis (1802-65) L?pez y Piquer, both of whom became artists. On his wife's death in 1814, L?pez was summoned to the court of Ferdinand VII in Madrid as Pintor de C?mara and within a short time he was jointly appointed first court painter with Francisco de Goya, to replace Mariano Salvador Maella. He remained in Madrid for the rest of his life, established as one of the major Spanish painters of the period.

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