Francisco de Zurbarán

Francisco de Zurbarán (baptized 7 November 1598 – 27 August 1664) was a Spanish Baroque painter born at Fuente de Cantos in Extremadura. Sent to Seville to train in 1614, he made his name with twenty-one paintings for the monastery of San Pablo el Real, settled there in 1629, and around 1630 became painter to Philip IV.

In 1631 he painted the altarpiece of the Apotheosis of Saint Thomas Aquinas. Called the Spanish Caravaggio for his chiaroscuro, he painted monks, nuns and still lifes exported to Spanish America. He moved to Madrid in 1658 and died there in 1664.