As with many Sevillian painters of his time, his biography revolves around that city, where he studied with Francisco Gutiérrez at the School of Fine Arts and was taught to admire Murillo; and Madrid, where he moved in 1831, thanks to the patronage of the British consul in Seville. The following year, he was named academician of merit by the Academy of San Fernando, and once he had settled at court, he began making a place for himself in that city’s art market, becoming a part of local art circles by helping to found cultural organisations, making contact with writers, and even writing art criticism himself. His interest in the arts and letters made him a typical representative of Romanticism, and this is visible in paintings such as Ventura de la Vega Reading a Work at the Teatro del Príncipe (Museo del Romanticismo, Madrid) and The Contemporary Poets, A Reading of Zorrilla at the Painter’s Studio (Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid).

He was one of the founders of Madrid’s Liceo Artístico y Literario in 1837, and the following year, he travelled to Seville to organize the Liceo Sevillano. There he became blind, but with the help of his friends, painters and writers, he was able to travel abroad, where his condition was cured in June 1840. The following year, he returned to his brilliant career in Madrid and two years later he was appointed court painter. In 1847, he was promoted to full membership of the Academy of San Fernando. His interest in participating in local art events is exemplified by his presence in 1856, just a year before his death, in the first National Exhibition of Fine Arts. Esquivel exercised influence on the art scene in Madrid through both his teaching and his Tratado de anatomía pictórica (Treatise on Pictorial Anatomy), first published in 1848.

He was a prolific painter, and while his catalogue includes a considerable variety of genres, his speciality was portraiture. Queens, infantas, politicians, soldiers, noblemen, the bourgeoisie and writers are the models for his individual and group portraits, and they allow us to recognise the protagonists of Romanticism in Madrid, as well as the middle and upper classes of his time. He produced a smaller number of religious paintings, with early works clearly indebted to Murillo and an evolution towards chromatic and compositional simplicity that approaches the work of the Nazarenes. He also painted historical and mythological images, as well as a few costumbrista works set in his native city, and even a few erotic paintings — something infrequent among Spanish painters of the time.

Javier Portús

He had an important political career. In 1817 he married María Teresa Ladrón de Guevara y Blázquez, by whom he had two daughters and a son, Hipólito, who was a parliamentary deputy for Cáceres in 1857. His sister Teresa married Donoso Cortés.

At the end of the Peninsular War, his father sent him to study at the Royal Seminary in Vergara and afterwards to England, where he acquired a clear political commitment to liberalism as well as a training in economics. He became one of the principal leaders of this ideology in Extremadura, and even paid personally for part of the expenses of setting up the National Militia. In 1823, he tried to organise the defence of Extremadura against the French troops of the Duke of Angoulême, but he was taken prisoner. He escaped to Portugal and from there to England, where he began a short exile that took him from London to Frankfurt and then to Paris. On returning to Spain in 1826, he settled in Madrid while his brother Rufino went to live in Cáceres. After the events of 1830 in France and the attempted military uprisings of the Spanish liberals, Ferdinand VII banished him to the town of Manzanares.

The brothers José and Rufino García- Carrasco played an important part in the consolidation of the throne of Isabella II and of the liberal party. After the approval of the 1837 Constitution, José was elected as a parliamentary deputy for Badajoz, and as a senator in 1840, 1843 and 1844. In 1845, he was made a life senator. His activity in the Senate was centred on economic affairs. During those years, together with his brother-in-law Donoso, he began an intense relationship with Queen Maria Christina, and came to act as the bearer of news between her and the government during the events of October 1841. In the Senate he became a staunch defender of the “governor queen”, arguing against the legitimacy of Espartero’s government.

He held the finance portfolio in the cabinet of Luis González-Bravo, the first with a fully moderate profile. In that brief period from 10 December 1843 to 3 May 1844, he implemented measures like the annulment of the suspension of the financial assignation granted to the “governor queen” in 1841, and the creation of Banco de Isabel II. A large number of his measures were aimed at speeding up the sale of disentailed assets.

When he left the ministry, he went to France to nurse his health. In 1850, some operations on the stock market led to his ruin and ensuing madness. His family took him to Extremadura, where he died soon afterwards. He had various properties in Extremadura, some of them acquired during the disentailment process. In 1844, he was awarded the title of Count of Santa Olalla in gratitude for his services to the queen.

Paloma Gómez Pastor