Francisco Herrera the Elder is remembered for work the next generation could not ignore.
The record lists Francisco Herrera the Elder as Spanish artist (1576-1656).
Francisco Herrera the Elder was born at Seville in 1576. His recorded nationality is Spain.
This was the period in which the artist became an individual with a signature, a reputation and a price.
He worked as painter and printmaker.
A painting outlives the argument about it, which is the only durable form of an artistic reputation.
That the work was made in Spain shaped it: artistic traditions, academies and the galleries that decide what is seen have never been evenly distributed.
Francisco Herrera the Elder died in 1656, aged 80. The work remains, hanging in collections that outlived both the artist and the market that first priced it.
