03 — ARTWORK
The Picture Merchant
- MEDIUM
- Oil on canvas, 201 x 125 cm
- TYPE
- Genre
PALETTE
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- FILE
- 800 × 1302 px · JPEG
COMMENTARY
UNDERLINED TERMS ARE DEFINED IN THE GLOSSARY.
The Picture Merchant c. 1670 Oil on canvasA woven cloth used as a support for painting. The best-quality canvas is made of linen; other materials used are cotton, hemp, and jute. It is now so familiar a material that the word 'canvas' has become almost a synonym for an oil painting, but it was not until around 1500 that it began to rival the wooden panel (which was more expensive and took longer to prepare) as the standard support for movable paintings (the transition came later in Northern Europe than in Italy). Canvas is not suitable for painting on until it has been coated with a ground, which isolates the fabric from the paint; otherwise it will absorb too much paint, only very rough effects will be obtainable, and parts of the fabric may be rotted by the pigments. It must also be made taut on a stretcher or by some other means., 201 x 125 cm Alte Pinakothek, Munich
Palomino describes Antolínez as a colourful, although not very likeable character, as vain as he was talented. Perhaps for this reason, he was an outsider to the established art world and received only a few church commissions. He was thus compelled to earn a living from devotional paintings, especially of the Virgin of the Immaculate Conception. Despite his boasts and pretensions, Antolínez probably lived like the humble painter seen in his extraordinary work, the Picture merchant, which can be interpreted as a self-mocking representation of his marginal existence.
CITE THIS RECORD — BIBTEX
@online{wga-rc5d4462ae8be0d,
author = {Krén, Emil and Marx, Daniel},
title = {The Picture Merchant by ANTOLINEZ, José},
organization = {{Web Gallery of Art}},
date = {2026-09-09},
url = {https://beta.wga.hu/artists/antolinez-jos-r1916824199bed9/the-picture-merchant-rc5d4462ae8be0d},
urldate = {2026-09-09},
langid = {english}
}ACCESSED 2026-09-09. REPLACE THE AUTHOR FIELD WITH THE COMMENTARY AUTHOR WHERE ONE IS NAMED.
