Herrera, Francisco de (1576–1656)

Spanish painter, etcher, and medallist. A painter of frescoes and history pictures, he represents the transition from Mannerism to baroque in Spain. He worked in a coarse and forcible style of which some trace may be discovered in the early ‘kitchen pictures’ of Diego Velázquez, whose first teacher he was. He was the father of Francisco de Herrera the Younger (El Mozo, 1622–1685).

When accused of coining false money, he took refuge in the Jesuits' College in Seville, where he painted St Hermengild in Glory, which won him the pardon of Philip IV.

Francisco the Younger was the pupil of his father, but fled to Rome to escape his cruelty. He specialized in still life, flowers, fruit, and fish, but also painted frescoes and, in later life, portraits. He became subdirector of the academy in Seville under Murillo in 1660. His painting of St Francis is in Seville Cathedral, and his Assumption of the Virgin in the Atocha church in Madrid won him an appointment as painter to the king.