Jusepe de Ribera (born 1591) was a Spanish etcher and painter who worked in Naples. His father was a shoemaker in Játiva, Valencia Province. Jusepe appears to have gone to Valencia while he was still young, but nothing is known of his possible artistic training there. He later went to Italy and spent time in Lombardy, then to Parma where he was driven by contentious jealousy of local artists. Jusepe settled in Rome until an accumulation of debts forced him to flee to Naples, where he married Caterina Azzolino, by whom he had seven children between the years 1627 and 1636.
In 1625, Jusepe de Ribera was elected to membership by the Academy of St. Luke in Rome, and six years later, the Pope conferred upon him the Order of Christ. Ribera was inventive in subject matter, ranging through biblical themes, visionary spectacles, genre, mythological subjects, portraits, and portraits of penitents and ascetics. His technique involved dramatic chiaroscuro, sensitive line, soft luminosity, and heavy impasto. In etching he employed a painterly technique, refined and precise in the details.
Jusepe de Ribera was the victim of the local politics and finances. The last decade of his life was one of personal struggle. He suffered from the taunts of other artists that his fame was "extinct," failing health, and difficulty in collecting payments due him. However, he courageously encountered these challenges by continuing to paint until the very year of his death in Naples. He died in 1652.
