468 Painting in Valencia. maturity would have been an excellent artist. A picture of Christ bearing the Cross in Magdalene College, Oxford, formerly attributed to Morales, is said to be by one of the Ribaltas. Their styles were exactly similar. Jose de Ribera (1588 — 1G56), when quite young, was the pupil of Francisco de Ribalta and a fellow-student with Juan. He afterwards studied in Italy (where he was called Lo Spagnoletto) — at Rome, where he studied the works of Caravaggio ; at Parma, where he was influenced by Correggio ; and at Naples, where he spent the best years of his life, and where he achieved immense success. Although he painted all his pictures in Italy, Ribera is thoroughly Spanish ; he never forgot his birth, and, indeed, showed himself so proud of it, that in signing his best pictures he always added the word " Espanol." The paintings of Ribera, like those of the Italian artists, are scattered throughout the whole of Europe : but Naples has retained some of his principal works. It was for the Carthusian convent of S. Martino, that he painted his great work, the Communion of the Apostles ; twelve Prophets on the windows of the different chapels ; and, lastly, the Descent from the Cross, which is almost unani- mously said to be his masterpiece (Fig. 161). Here we may find, beside the qualities enumerated above, much pathos and expression, and a power of feeling which is not usually met with in his works ; so that this picture seems to unite to the fiery energy of Caravaggio not only the grace of Correggio, but the religious fervour of Fra Angelico. In the Louvre there is only one of Ribera' s works, an Adoration of the Shepherds, but in the Museum at Madrid is a great number of his works, in all his styles. His Jacob* s Ladder recalls Correggio. Of his later style, when
