Fernando Brambila

Malaspina Expedition

Roping Cattle on the Pampas

Tlingit Totem in Alaska

Manila Cathedral

Fernando Brambila, or Ferdinando Brambilla, (12 July 1763 – 23 January 1834) was an Italian painter and engraver who spent most of his life in Spain, where he worked for the Royal Court. He is best known for his participation in the Malaspina Expedition.

Biography

He was born in

In 1790, he was working as a set designer and scenery painter at La Scala when Francesco Melzi d'Eril and Count Paolo Greppi [it], on behalf of the Spanish government, proposed that he be added to the Malaspina Expedition as one of the official artists.^[2] He was hired, together with Giovanni Ravenet, a painter from Parma, to replace artists who had resigned.^[3]

Siege of Zaragoza

The Convent of San José, Torched by the French

Ruins of the General Hospital

In April 1791, he began his journey to join the expedition. After making his way to

.

He and Ravenet returned together in 1795 and remained in Spain, working for the government at a rate of 27,000

Archbishop of Toledo, he designed and created a triumphal arch for the Cathedral. That same year, King Carlos IV named him "Painter, Architect and Decorator for the Royal Court". He was married the following year, but had only one son before becoming a widower.^[3]

Royal Sites

Royal Palace, Cuesta de la Vega

La Granja Fountain, Aranjuez

After the expedition

In May 1806, his contract expired. He and Ravenet presented all of their works to Count

José de Palafox to create a graphic record of the event's aftermath.^[3] Thirty-two of these drawings were later published as Grabados de la Ruina de Zaragoza. He briefly returned to Madrid, then fled to Cádiz

when it became obvious that Napoleon's troops would take the city.

Following the end of the

Fernando VII. In 1814, he was appointed the Director of Perspective and Decorative Art at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando

and became an Academician of Merit the following year.

In 1817, the Academy published his Tratado de Principios Elementales de Perspectiva. Four years later, he was commissioned to create a series of paintings and lithographs depicting Royal sites; including

Moncloa Palace

; a project that kept him engaged until 1832. They were published as Vistas de los Sitios Reales y Madrid.

He had suffered from a serious illness in 1829 and never fully recovered. After seeking cures at various spas, he died at his home in Madrid in 1834.[3]

References

1. ^ ^{a b c} "Ferdinando Brambilla from Cassano, a painter in Antarctica" @ Io Prima di Me.
2. ^ Biographical notes @ the Alexandro Malaspina Research Center.
3. ^ ^{a b c d e f} "Fernando Brambila, Court painter to Charles IV" by Emilio Soler Pascual @ Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes.

Further reading

• Carmen Sotos Serrano, Los Pintores de la Expedición de Alejandro Malaspina, Real Academia de la Historia, 1982
  ISBN 84-600-2830-5
• José Luis Sancho, Aranjuez: Solan de Cabras- La Isabela (Las Visitas de los Sitios Reales por Brambilla), Doce Calles, 2002,
  ISBN 978-84-974400-1-1

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Fernando Brambila.

• "The Siege of Zaragoza" Archived 2004-12-05 at the Wayback Machine, exhibition at the Museo de Zaragoza [es]
• More works by Brambila @ the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica.