Mari%C3%A0 Fortuny

Mari Fortuny i Marsal , known more simply as Mari Fortuny or Mariano Fortuny, was the leading Catalan painter of his day, with an international reputation. His brief career encompassed works on a variety of subjects common in the art of the period, including the Romantic fascination with Orientalist themes, historicist genre painting, military painting of Spanish colonial expansion, as well as a prescient loosening of brushstroke and color.

He was born in Reus, a town near Tarragona, in Catalonia, Spain. His father died when Mari was an infant, and his mother by the time he was 12. Thus, Mari was raised by his grandfather, a cabinetmaker who taught him to make wax figurines. At the age of 9, at a public competition in his town, a local painter, teacher and patron, Domnec Soberano i Mestres, encouraged further study. At the age ofhe moved to Barcelona with his grandfather. The sculptor Domnec Talarn secured him a pension allowing him to attend the Academy of Barcelona . There he studied for four years under Claudi Lorenzale and Pau Mil i Fontanals160 , and in March 1857 he gained a scholarship that entitled him to two years of studies in Rome starting in 1858. There he studied drawing and grand manner styles, together with Josep Armet i Portanell, at the Academia Giggi.

Source: Wikipedia