Mariano José Mariá Bernardo Fortuny

born Reus, Spain, 1838; died Rome, Italy, 1874

BiographyMariano José María Bernardo Fortuny was a Spanish painter, born in the autonomous region of Catalonia. His father died when he was an infant, and his mother by the time he was 12. He was raised by his grandfather, a cabinet-maker who taught him to make wax figurines. At the age of 14 years he moved to Barcelona with his grandfather where he attended the Academy of Barcelona. In 1857 he was awarded a scholarship for two years of study in Rome. The following year, the Spanish government commissioned Fortuny to depict the campaigns of the Spanish-Moroccan War. Later travels resulted in a fascination with the exotic themes of the world of Morocco and the Middle East. He visited Paris in 1868 and1870 and returned to Rome in 1874 where he died somewhat suddenly from an attack of malaria, contracted while painting in the open air at Naples and Portici in the summer of 1874.He was famed for his oil paintings of military, royal, historical, and Eastern subjects.

(Source: AskArt.com)

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