Autorretrato de Ricardo Balaca (Museo del Prado)

Ricardo Balaca y Orejas-Canseco (31 December 1844 – 12 February 1880) was a Spanish painter and illustrator who specialized in battle scenes. His brother,

Eduardo Eduardo is the Spanish and Portuguese form of the male given name Edward. Another version is Duarte. It may refer to: Association football * Eduardo Bonvallet, Chilean football player and sports commentator * Eduardo Carvalho, Portuguese foo ...

, was also a well-known painter. Dama en el saloncito

Biography

Balaca was born in Lisbon. His father was the painter, José Balaca, who was temporarily living there, having gone into exile for political reasons. He began his artistic training in the family workshop and finished at the

Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando The Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando (RABASF; ), located on the Calle de Alcalá in the heart of Madrid, currently functions as a museum and gallery. A public law corporation, it is integrated together with other Spanish royal acad ...

in Madrid, where he studied with

Federico de Madrazo Federico de Madrazo y Kuntz (9 February 181510 June 1894) was a Spanish painter. Biography Born in Rome, he was the son of José de Madrazo y Agudo, the painter and former Director of the Prado Museum. Federico's grandfather on his mother side ...

.Brief biography
@ the

Museo del Prado The Prado Museum ( ; ), officially known as Museo Nacional del Prado, is the main Spanish national art museum, located in central Madrid. It is widely considered to house one of the world's finest collections of European art, dating from th ...

. His talents displayed themselves at an early age; he was only thirteen when he had his first showing at the National Exhibition of Fine Arts, receiving "honorable mention".Brief biography
@ the Museo Lázaro Galdiano. He created drawings, illustrations and numerous portraits, but is chiefly remembered for his portrayals of battles in

Romantic Romantic may refer to: Genres and eras * The Romantic era, an artistic, literary, musical and intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries ** Romantic music, of that era ** Romantic poetry, of that era ** Romanticism in science, of that e ...

style. During the

Third Carlist War The Third Carlist War ( es, Tercera Guerra Carlista) (1872–1876) was the last Carlist War in Spain. It is sometimes referred to as the "Second Carlist War", as the earlier "Second" War (1847–1849) was smaller in scale and relatively trivial ...

, he served as a correspondent on the northern front with the army of King

Alfonso XII Alfonso XII (Alfonso Francisco de Asís Fernando Pío Juan María de la Concepción Gregorio Pelayo; 28 November 185725 November 1885), also known as El Pacificador or the Peacemaker, was King of Spain from 29 December 1874 to his death in 188 ...

. His notable historic battle scenes include the

Battle of Almansa The Battle of Almansa took place on 25 April 1707, during the War of the Spanish Succession. It was fought between an army loyal to Philip V of Spain, Bourbon claimant to the Spanish throne, and one supporting his Habsburg rival, Archduke Charle ...

, which was originally displayed in the

Palacio de las Cortes Palacio de las Cortes is a building in Madrid where the Spanish Congress of Deputies meets. It is located on the Calle Zorrilla and the Carrera de San Jerónimo, near the Paseo del Prado. It was built by Narciso Pascual Colomer from 1843 to 1 ...

, and the

Battle of Bailén The Battle of Bailén was fought in 1808 between the Spanish Army of Andalusia, led by Generals Francisco Castaños and Theodor von Reding, and the Imperial French Army's II corps d'observation de la Gironde under General Pierre Dupont de ...

. He also provided illustrations for a deluxe edition of the

Miguel de Cervantes Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (; 29 September 1547 (assumed) – 22 April 1616 NS) was an Early Modern Spanish writer widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists. He is best know ...

novel ''

Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is ''The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha'' or, in Spanish, (changing in Part 2 to ). A founding work of Wester ...

'', annotated by Cervantes scholar and published by Montaner y Simón after Balaca's death. It appears, however, that not all of the nearly three hundred illustrations are by Balaca, although no one else was officially credited in the first edition.Excerpt from ''An Iconography of Don Quixote''
by Henry Spencer Ashbee @ Google books. In a reprint, issued in 1970, Josep Lluís Pellicer also receives credit. He died in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), an ...

, aged 35. None of the available sources give a cause for his early death.

Selected drawings and paintings

File:Dama en el saloncito.jpg, Lady in the living room File:202 017 quijote cap05.jpg, Illustration from ''Don Quixote'' File:RicardoBalaca.jpg, The Battle of Almansa File:Ricardo Balaca - The Baile de Capellanes - Google Art Project.jpg, Dancing Chaplains File:Doña Teresa Vergara, esposa del pintor Ricardo Balaca (Museo Lázaro Galdiano).JPG, Portrait of his wife, Teresa Vergara

References

External links

More drawings by Balaca
@ the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica

@ Espacio Cusachs, with more military paintings {{DEFAULTSORT:Balaca, Ricardo 1844 births 1880 deaths 19th-century Spanish painters 19th-century Spanish male artists Spanish male painters People from Lisbon Spanish battle painters Spanish portrait painters Spanish illustrators Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando alumni

Biography

Selected drawings and paintings

References

Further reading

External links