Monument in honor of the excellent Xàtiví artist, established in Naples, José de Ribera called the Spagnoletto. A particular initiative of Aurelio Querol who, approaching the date of the third centenary of the birth of the great painter (1888), summoned Valencian artists on January 24, 1886 to the Athenaeum to raise funds with which to make the well-deserved monument. Gathered and exhibited some seventy pieces, painting and sculpture, their sale provided resources with which to undertake the work.

The monument was commissioned to be made to Mariano Benlliure, who was only 23 years old, did not want to perceive anything to model, demanding only that the bronze be melted in Rome and under his personal surveillance. Ribera, represented in a natural attitude, stands backwards with the palette in one hand and the brush in the other, nor does he lack his cloak, nor at his waist, the chivalric sword.

The pedestal, made of Carrara marble, with an octagon floor plan with alternately unequal sides, has, on its wide sides, the coats of arms of Valencia, Xàtiva and the Royal Academy of San Carlos amparadora with the Town Hall of the homage. In front of the figure, there is a label with a laurel wreath surrounding the description: “A Ribera”.

The inauguration took place on January 12, 1888, after the formation and arrival of a brilliant retinue, from the City Council, under maces, with the clarins and drums, and the guilds with their flags, schoolchildren, personalities and the authorities, who after a stopover in the Museum -in El Carmen- in front of the works, not many, there existing of the great painter, he arrived at the Plaza del Temple, in front of the Civil Government, where the statue stood, discovered at the time by the Mayor of Valencia. This monument was moved in 1905 to the existing gardens in Plaça de Sant Francesc where it remained until it returned to the vicinity of its first location, the triangular Plaza del Poeta Llorente, on the other side of the temple building and next to the bed of the Turia. Sculpturally it is one of Benlliure's most inspiring works, within his impressionist and even repentist style, instantist, capturing the living thing, the fleeting thing and the picturesque.



Dades bàsiques

Direcció:

Plaza del Poeta Llorente, 4
46003 Valencia