In _The Entombment_ the master-hand is revealed by the superb breadth
with which the limp yet weighty body of the Saviour is painted. It is
not modelled in all its plastic roundness, but cut into sharp flat
passages of light and shadow, the plastic relief being suggested by the
perfection of the anatomical drawing and foreshortening. Poignant grief
is expressed in the faces of St. Joseph of Arimathæa, the Virgin Mary,
St. John, and Nicodemus, who surround the body, the head of which is
supported by St. Joseph. The same subject is treated with less masterly
authority in _The Entombment_ (No. 1725A), which can only be accepted
as a school picture.
The ascetic fervour tinged with a sense almost of cruel pleasure
in self-inflicted suffering, with which Ribera loved to invest his
semi-nude figures of emaciated saints, hermits, and martyrs, will be
found in the _St. Paul the Hermit_. The picture was bought in 1875 for
£252.
Without loss of realistic power, and without affectation or conscious
striving for prettiness, Ribera shows more human tenderness and gentle
emotion in _The Adoration of the Shepherds_ (No. 1721), a picture
signed and dated on a stone in the right-hand corner,
_Juse Ribera español Academico romano, F. 1650._
In accordance with the nature of the subject he has here refrained from
making use of abrupt light and shade, the whole scene being enveloped
in a warm glow. The types are not idealised, but are apparently
faithful portraits of their respective models. Very similar to the
central group in this canvas, but more sonorous in its depth of colour,
from which gleam forth the strong lights, is the _Virgin and Child_
(No. 1724) in the La Caze Room. The four pictures of _Philosophers_
(Nos. 1726-1729), likewise in the La Caze Bequest, which the official
Catalogue gives to Ribera, are certainly not by that master. It has
been suggested that they may be the work of Ribera’s facile and
versatile pupil, Luca Giordano (“Fa Presto”), but the poor quality of
these paintings scarcely justifies even this attribution. They were
formerly in the collection of General Mazzavedo.
Ribera had a romantic career, rising as he did from absolute penury to
almost despotic power as a member of a triumvirate that would brook no
competition in Naples and would shrink from no means to further their
schemes. Nothing is known as to how he died. He disappeared in 1656,
and probably found his death in the depths of the sea.