Antonio Acisco Palomino de Castro y Velasco

Palomino was one of the most important fresco painters of the Spanish late Baroque period, and it is rare that works by the artist to appear at auction.  His dramatic style combined elements from the Neapolitan tradition of fresco painting—a technique he learned from his colleague Luca Giordano, who arrived in Madrid in 1692—with the more conventional decorative schemes of Spanish mid-17th century painting.  The artist perfected this specific technique during his early training in Córdoba and then Madrid.  Palomino's three volume treatise on painting, El museo pictórico y escala óptica (1715-24), is an important scholastic achievement and reveals his passion for painting and his admiration and appreciation for other artists, both native and foreign, who were active in Spain. 

Most of Palomino's canvas paintings were commissioned as altarpieces by religious orders.  For these works, the artist often chose to depict The Immaculate Conception, and it is most likely that this painting, which is apparently still in in its original frame, was one such commission.  Another similar Immaculate Conception with noticeable differences by Palomino is in the Prado Museum, Madrid (inv. no. 1.026).