THE SCULPTRESS OF SEVILLE.
To the school of Seville, in which Spanish art reached its highest development, belongs a fair artist of repute. Luisa Roldan was known as an excellent sculptor in wood. She was born in 1656, and profited by her father’s instructions in art, acquiring great skill. After her mother’s death, she kept both her household and the studio in orderly operation, attending with successful management to the affairs of both, and keeping busy at work both her servants and her father’s pupils.
Roldan was indebted to her for valuable hints. He had carved a statue of St. Ferdinand for the Cathedral, which the canons rejected. Luisa suggested certain anatomical operations with the saw, which were perfectly successful. The canons took the work for a new one, and were satisfied; and the saint was peacefully installed in his chapel. Her chief productions were small figures of the Virgin, or groups of the Adoration of the shepherds, etc., and all were designed and executed with delicacy and grace. She sculptured a Magdalen supported by an angel, the statue giving an exquisite idea of an angel’s sweetness and protecting love. It is placed in the hospital at Cadiz. Her small pieces are full of expression.
She married Don Luis de los Arcos, and was invited to Madrid in 1692, through Don Cristobal Ontañon, who had presented several of her works to Charles II. The king was pleased, and ordered a statue of St. Michael, life size, for the church of the Escurial. This Luisa executed with great success, and to the admiration of the connoisseurs. The work elicited complimentary verses from a distinguished poet, and the artist was rewarded by the post of sculptress in ordinary to the king, with a salary of a hundred ducats, paid from the day she arrived at court.
When Charles II. died she had just completed a statue of our Saviour which he had ordered for a convent; its destination was then changed to a nunnery at Sisanto. She died at Madrid in 1704, leaving in the palace treasure a small group, modeled in clay, representing St. Anna teaching the Virgin to read, and attended by angels. Some of her works were placed in the Recolete Convent, and some in the Chartreuse of Paulan.
Doña Isabella Carasquilla was a painter, and married a miniaturist, Juan de Valdes Leal of Cordova. Their daughters Luisa and Maria were highly educated, and painted miniatures. The latter died in 1730, a nun in the Sistercian Convent at Seville.
Rosalba Salvioni, a painter of celebrity, was the pupil of Mesquida. Doña Inez Zarcillo evinced no small taste in drawing and modeling. She was the sister of a sculptor.
Maria de Loreto Prieto, an artist’s daughter, possessed extraordinary talent for painting and engraving. Her father was highly esteemed by Charles III., and had the oversight of all the coins for the purpose of improving the stamps.
Caterina Querubini, the wife of Preciado, a miniature-painter, enjoyed a pension from the Spanish court, and an honored place in the Academy de San Fernando.
Doña Isabella Farnese, the wife of Philip V., and Angela Perez Caballero, drew exceedingly well, and were members of the Academy in Madrid.