06 Works, Today, June 27th, is King Ferdinand III's day, his story in Paintings #178

Unknown artist

King Fernando III of Castilla, c. 13th century

I have no further description of this artwork at this time

Ferdinand III (1199/1201 – 30 May 1252), called the Saint (el Santo), was King of Castile from 1217 and King of León from 1230 as well as King of Galicia from 1231. Through his second marriage he was also Count of Aumale. Ferdinand III was one of the most successful kings of Castile, securing not only the permanent union of the crowns of Castile and León, but also masterminding the most expansive campaign of Reconquista yet.

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, (1617–1682)

King Ferdinand III of Castile, c.1671

Oil on canvas

Seville Cathedral 

Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (born late December 1617, baptized January 1, 1618 – April 3, 1682) was a Spanish Baroque painter. Although he is best known for his religious works, Murillo also produced a considerable number of paintings of contemporary women and children. These lively, realist portraits of flower girls, street urchins, and beggars constitute an extensive and appealing record of the everyday life of his times. More on Bartolomé Esteban Murillo

He took as his counsellors the wisest men in the State, saw to the strict administration of justice, and took the greatest care not to overburden his subjects with taxation, fearing, as he said, the curse of one poor woman more than a whole army of Saracens. 

Moors and Christian Battle of Marrakesh, 13th Century

Cantigas de Santa Maria

Ferdinand married Beatrice, the daughter of the King of Germany, one of the most virtuous princesses of her time. They had seven children: six princes and one princess. The highest aims of Ferdinand's life were the propagation of the Faith and the liberation of Spain from the Saracen yoke, hence his continual wars against the them. He took from them vast territories, Granada and Alicante alone remaining in their power at the time of his death. 

Francisco de Paula Van Halen y Gil , (1810-1887)

Detail of "The Battle of Navas de Tolosa", c. 1864

Oil on canvas

Senate Palace, Madrid

Francisco de Paula Van Halen y Gil (3 March 1814, Vic - 11 February 1887, Madrid) was a Spanish painter, known primarily for battle scenes and other historical works.

He began his career in Barcelona, then moved to Madrid, where he enrolled at the Real Academia de Bellas Artes de San Fernando. In 1838, he made his public début at the age of twenty-four.

After that, he found work as an illustrator and engraver for some of Madrid's major magazines. He also edited several collections of lithographs. One of his most popular collections, which was reissued in the 1950s, was Función de Toros.


In 1851, he was named a court painter for Queen Isabel II and was elected a member of the San Fernando Academy. His work for the Queen included the creation of scientific drawings for the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales and one of his two best-known battle paintings. Many of his other paintings are on display in the Royal Palace. From 1860, he was a frequent participant in the National Exhibition of Fine Arts. More on Francisco de Paula Van Halen y Gil 

In the most important towns he founded bishoprics, reestablished Catholic worship everywhere, built churches, founded monasteries, and endowed hospitals. The greatest joys of his life were the conquests of Cordova  and Seville. 

Francisco Pacheco del Río, (1564–1644) (circle of)

The Surrrender of Seville to Ferdinand III

Oil on canvas

H 63.5 x W 136.5 cm

The Bowes Museum

Francisco Pacheco del Río (bap. 3 November 1564 – 27 November 1644) was a Spanish painter, best known as the teacher and father-in-law of Diego Velázquez and Alonzo Cano, and for his textbook on painting that is an important source for the study of 17th-century practice in Spain.

He was born at Sanlúcar de Barrameda, and moved to Seville at a young age. He was a student of Luis Fernandez, and did much of his learning by copying works of the Italian masters. He visited Madrid and Toledo in 1611, studying the work of El Greco, then returned to Seville and opened an art school.

Pacheco's school emphasized the academically correct representation of religious subjects, not least because he was the official censor of Seville's Inquisition. His own work reflects those constraints.

In addition to material on iconography, materials and technique, Pacheco's Arte de la pintura (1649) includes valuable biographical information on Spanish painters of the time. More on Francisco Pacheco del Río

He turned the great mosques of these places into cathedrals, dedicating them to the Blessed Virgin. He watched over the conduct of his soldiers, confiding more in their virtue than in their valour, fasted strictly himself, wore a rough hairshirt, and often spent his nights in prayer, especially before battles. Amid the tumult of the camp he lived like a religious in the cloister. 

Virgilio Mattoni de la Fuente 

Las postrimerías de San Fernando's

Alcazar de Sevilla

Ferdinand, who lifted himself from the bed, knelt on the hard marble tiles, and placed a rope he had prepared around his neck as a sinful penitent. Thus, contrite and humiliated, King Ferdinand laid down his royalty before the Divine Royalty of Jesus Christ.

Virgilio Mattoni de la Fuente (1842–1923) was a painter of post-romantic realism and a central figure in the modern Andalusian school of painters.

Mattoni trained at the Provincial School of Fine Arts in Seville from 1856 to 1868. Among his teachers were Eduardo Cano de la Peña, recognized for his historical paintings and winner of the National Exhibition of Fine Arts of 1856, and Joaquín Domínguez Bécquer, another representative of the Sevillian pictorial school of the second half of the 19th century. He completed his studies at the Chigi Academy in Rome, between 1872 and 1874.

He returned to the Santa Cruz neighborhood of Seville and opened a studio there. In 1886, Mattoni was named a member of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts of San Fernando de Madrid. In 1887, he was chosen as a faculty member of the Painting Section of the Provincial School of Fine Arts of Seville which became part of the University of Seville. In 1917, Mattoni was appointed Director of the Academy of the Applied Arts. More on Virgilio Mattoni de la Fuente

He founded the University of Salamanca. Ferdinand was buried in the great cathedral of Seville before the image of the Blessed Virgin, clothed, at his own request, in the habit of the Third Order of St. Francis. His body, it is said, remains incorrupt. Many miracles took place at his tomb, and Clement X canonized him in 1671. More on Ferdinand III

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